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In the meadow lands, when, for the purpose of sinking wells, the soil is penetrated to an immense depth, the workmen often come to thick strata of schist, in which they find imbedded trunks and roots of trees, and stalks of plants and ferns, which now grow in tropical climates only.
This is more especially the case in the Northern provinces, where the workmen are a sound, healthy, and sober race, enjoying simple and healthy amusements, and affording an excellent example to those of countries considering themselves much more highly civilised.
Every quarter of an hour trams came in with workmen, and the market-carts continued to drive in from the country laden with vegetables, corn or pigs' carcasses. The street was like a feeding-tube through which nourishment was continually being drawn into the city. On the top of swaying loads of straw sat Zealand peasants nodding.
Knowing this, they all cut the price down to the lowest possible figure and the workmen had to suffer. The trouble was that there were too many 'masters'. It would have been far better for the workmen if nine out of every ten of the employers had never started business.
Those who were fortunate enough to be provided with cards of admission into Notre Dame, went at six o'clock in the morning to the cathedral, for whose adorning during the last fourteen days more than a thousand workmen had been busy, and who had not yet quite finished their work, retiring only when the approach of the pope and of his suite was announced.
When I went out on the street Monday morning, the first thing I saw was the placard of the military commander announcing that unless the workmen went to the shops, they would be sent to the front the following day.
A neighboring clock struck eleven, and the workmen all descended to lunch. We remained until the last, Philip and I, but in stepping on the ladder to descend, he turned to me with a leer, and said, in his hoarse, dissipated voice: "'You see, steady as a sailor; Camille is not nearly the son of a widow. "The blood mounted to my head. I was beside myself.
Two or three times a day this quiet is broken by the sudden thunder from a quarry, where the workmen are blasting rocks; and a peal of thunder sounds strangely in such a green, sunny, and quiet landscape, with the blue sky brightening the river. I have not seen much of the people. There have been, however, several incidents which amused me, though scarcely worth telling.
Bill Totts did not slouch, but somehow his whole form limbered up and became graceful. The very sound of the voice was changed, and the laugh was loud and hearty, while loose speech and an occasional oath were as a matter of course on his lips. Also, Bill Totts was a trifle inclined to late hours, and at times, in saloons, to be good-naturedly bellicose with other workmen.
Money was then so scarce that Adam Smith says it was not uncommon for workmen, in certain parts of Scotland, to carry nails instead of pence to the baker's or the alehouse. A middle class could scarcely as yet be said to exist, or any condition between the starving cottiers and the impoverished proprietors, whose available means were principally expended in hard drinking.*
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