Some years since, on a journey into Kent, and sitting on the box beside the dragsman, I was surprised to see him turn out of a fine piece of road which had the most moderate, and, in my idea, most insignificant slope, in order to whip his horses over a deep and fresh laid piece of gravel.
Even those who make the best use of our system of education, and whose accomplishments at quitting college are not confined to being a capital rower and a " prime dragsman," learn very little or nothing that is of use to them in after life ;
In consequence of the great improvement in the make of travelling carriages, there are now few opportunities for the dragsman to exercise his calling in cutting off trunks fastened behind those vehicles, so that the thieves who have a preference for this mode of plunder, are now constrained to prowl about the streets, following the numerous carts which are daily employed in the delivering of goods in this large city and who may be termed "cart sneaks. "
Ten figures of eight cut in five minutes -- ice broken -- dreadful catastrophe -- a score of skaiters fell in -- Humane Society called out -- Drags and dragsmen in full cry.
On the coal being detached in the manner above described, a corve, tub, or basket, is then brought to the spot on a four-wheeled train, by a man and boy, technically called a " dragsman and foal," and when filled with the scattered fragments, it is dragged to the bottom of the shaft, hooked to the end of the rope, and drawn to the top in about three minutes. When the corbes are made of iron they are called tubs, and the labours of the dragsman and his assistant are then performed by horses.
The country to be ridden over is selected the day before the run by the huntsman, who walks over the whole line with the dragsman, the legitimacy of the trail being assured by no mark of any kind being left on the line except on fences in which there is barbed wire.
