CHAP. X. SURVEY OF A LINE. 185 



MAP OP LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY. (Eastern Part.) 



personal violence. Near Newton-in-the- Willows the / 

 farmers stationed men at the field-gates with pitchforks, 

 and sometimes with guns, to drive the surveyors back. 

 At St. Helen's, one of the chainmen was laid hold of by 

 a mob of colliers, and threatened to be hurled down a 

 coal-pit. A number of men, women, and children, col- 

 lected and ran after the surveyors wherever they made 

 their appearance, bawling nicknames and throwing 

 stones at them. As one of the chainmen was climbing 

 over a gate one day, a labourer made at him with a 

 pitchfork, and ran it through his clothes into his back ; 

 other watchers running up, the chainman, who was 

 more stunned than hurt, took to his heels and fled. But 

 that mysterious-looking instrument the theodolite 

 most excited the fury of the natives, who concentrated 

 on the man who carried it their fiercest execrations and 

 most offensive nicknames. 



A powerful fellow, a noted bruiser, was hired by the 

 surveyors to carry the instrument, with a view to its 

 protection against all assailants ; but one day an equally 

 powerful fellow, a St. Helen's collier, cock of the walk 

 in his neighbourhood, made up to the theodolite bearer 

 to wrest it from him by sheer force. A battle took 



