Although in this age of all but universal hypocrisy and make-believe,
every man has at least two fashions of one countenance, it is in dress
principally that most men are most unlike themselves. But the coalheaver
always sticks close to the attire of his station; he alone wears the
consistent and befitting garb of his forefathers; he alone has not
discarded "the napless vesture of humility," to follow the always
expensive, and often absurd fashions of his superiors. All ungalled of
him is each courtier's heel or great man's kibe. Yet, is not even his
every-day clothing unseemly, or his aspect unprepossessing. He casts
as broad and proper a shadow in the sun as any other man. Black he is,
indeed, but comely, like the daughters of Jerusalem.--To begin with the
hat which he has honoured with a preference--what are your operas or
your fire-shovels beside it? they must instantly (on a fair comparison)
sink many degrees below zero in the scale of contempt. In a word, I
would make bold to assert that it unites in perfection the two grand
requisites of a head covering, beauty and comfort. Gentlemen may smile
at this if they will, and take exception to my taste; but, I ask, does
the modern round hat, whatever the insignificant variations of its form,
possess either quality? No, not a jot of it. One would think, by our
pertinacious adherence to the head-ach giving, circular conformation,
that we wished to show our anger at the Almighty for not shaping our
caputs like cylinders. In fine, though the parson's and the quaker's hat
has each its several merits, commend me to the fan-tailed _shallow_.
The flap part attached to the cap seems, at first sight, as to use,
supernecessary, although so ornamental withal. It no doubt (as its
name, indeed indicates) had its origin in gallantry, and was invented
in the age of fans, for the purpose of cooling their mistresses'
bosoms, heated--as they would necessarily be--at fair time, by their
gravel-grinding walks, under a fervid sun, to the elegant revels of
West-end, of Greenwich, or of Tothill-fields. Breeches, rejected by
common consent of young and old alike, cling to the legs of the
coalheaver with an abiding fondness, as to the last place of refuge;
and, on gala-days, a dandy might die of envy to mark the splendour
of those nether integuments--which he has not soul enough to dare
to wear--of brilliant eye-arresting blue, or glowing scarlet plush,
glittering in the sun's rays, giving and taking glory! But enough of
the dress of these select "true-born Englishmen"--for right glad I am
to state that there are but _two_ Scotch coalheavers on the whole
river, and _no_ Irish. I beg leave to return to the more important
consideration of their manners. Most people you meet in your walks in
the common thoroughfare of London, glide, shuffle, or crawl onward, as
if they conscientiously thought they had no manner of right to tread the
earth but on sufferance. Not so our coalheaver. Mark how erect _he_
walks! how firm a keel he presents to the vainly breasting human tide
that comes rolling on with a show of opposition to his onward course!
It is he, and he only, who preserves, in his gait and in his air,
the self-sustained and conscious dignity of the first-created man.
Surrounded by an inferior creation, he gives the wall to none. That
pliancy of temper, which is wont to make itself known by the waiving
a point or renouncing a principle for others' advantage, in him
has no place; he either knows it not, or else considers it a poor,
mean-spirited, creeping baseness, altogether unworthy of his imitation,
and best befitted with ineffable contempt. He neither dreads the contact
of the baker--the Scylla of the metropolitan peripatetic, nor yet shuns
the dire collision of the chimney-sweep--his Charybdis. Try to pass him
as he walks leisurely on, making the solid earth ring with his bold
tread, and you will experience more difficulties in the attempt than did
that famous admiral, Bartholomew Diaz, when he first doubled the Cape of
Storms. Or let us suppose, that haply you allow your frail carcass to go
full drive against his sturdiness, when lo!--in beautiful illustration
of those doctrines in projectiles, that relate to the concussion of
moving bodies--you fly off at an angle "right slick" into the middle of
the carriage-way; whence a question of some interest presently arises,
whether you will please to be run over by a short or a long stage.--But
to return. Who hesitates to make way for a coalheaver? As for their
drays--as _consecutive_ a species of vehicles as a body can be stopped
by--every one knows they make way for themselves.
I one Sunday met a party of my favourites in St. Paul's cathedral.
They seemed to view with becoming respect and even awe that splendid
place; and they listened to and observed, with apparent profound
attention, the cathedral service. Yet I must confess my favourable
opinion of their grave looks was rather staggered by overhearing
afterwards one of them say to his neighbour, casting a look all round
the while, "My eyes, Tom, what lots o' _coals_ this here place would
hold." Perhaps the observation was meant in honour.
_Monthly Magazine_.
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