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 July

NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.

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ijHOMAS Pice, of Bishopwearmouth, com- monly known as Tommy Pigg, who died there on the 24th February, 1852, aged 59 years, was one of the many amongst the working popu- lation in the counties of Durham and Northumber- land who have distinguished themselves in mathemati- cal and mechanical science. His memory recalls the names of about a score of illustrious natives, the ma- jority of whom have sprung from the ranks of the hard- handed sons of toil, and risen, by their inborn energy, to prominent positions. Such were the Huttons, Coughrons, Emersons, Kiddles, Atkinsons, Weddles, I [earns, Fenwicks, Woolhouses, and many more. Of Thomas Pigg's birth and parentage little or nothing is known. His early years were likewise spent in obscurity We only learn that for a short time, previous to the year 1830, he was employed as an agricultural labourer in the service of a Mr. Lowrey, near Oxclose, beside Shadforth, a few miles from Durham ; and that, being dissatisfied with common farming work, he engaged himself that year as a waggon shifter on the Lambton (Lord Durham's) railway. His occupation brought him to the staiths on the south side of the Wear, in Galley's Gill, Sunderland, and there he rose to be a trimmer. At this period of his life, it is a remarkable fact that he was entirely unacquainted with the simple rules of arithmetic. He had reached his thirty-seventh year, when, one day, he and his fellow-workmen, having got their wages in a lump sum, adjourned to a neighbour- ing public-house in order to divide them and assign their several shares in proportion to the shifts they had each worked. Tommy was not satisfied with the division, thinking he had not received so much as he was entitled to ; but, being no scholar, he could not contest the point. He manfully resolved, however, to make himself able by the next pay-night to calculate the amount which he had to get ; and this he succeeded in accomplishing, with the help of a fellow-workman, whose literary advantages had been better than his own. From this time, up to his death, he was a devout and ardent student. While the rest of the trimmers went to the public-house, or perhaps spent their leisure hours more prudently in making and mending their own shoes, Tommy, while not neglecting that branch of domestic industry, occupied his time, during the long waits which the trimmers had in their cabin, in working out arith- metical and algebraic problems, continuing the same course of study at every by-hour, either at home or in a friendly shoemaker's shop he used much to frequent, with his familiar slate and pencil, which he could use there without interruption, as an intelligent brother of the craft, who worked in the shop, which was his father's, and who knew Tommy intimately, informs us. It was

also not an unfrequent occurrence with Tommy, when he chanced to come upon some problem more difficult than usual, to sit up a good part of the night, after a long, hard day's work, puzzling his brain how to solve it, and seldom going to bed until he had done so. He might often have been seen engaged at intervals during the day in solving knotty questions with the end of his fore-finger amongst the dust accumu- lated on the ship's deck, which formed a rough and ready- made black board. At length, by such extraordinary application and perseverance, he became one of the first mathematicians in the North of England. For many years previous to his decease, he answered nearly all the questions propounded in the " Ladies' Diary " that admirable periodical which has done more than any other to bring out the special mathematical talent of all kinds of people in all parts of the country. He was also an occasional contributor to the Glasgow Engineer and Mechanics' Magazine, besides other periodicals of the same class. His ability secured for him the appreciation and acquaintance of some of the foremost scientific men in the kingdom ; and several of the best mathematicians in Sunderland and the neighbourhood received private in- struction from him, and owe to him at least their initia- tion into, and lasting keen taste for, the exact sciences.

WILLIAM BROOKIK.



TERRIBLE and mysterious tragedy, vividly remembered for half a century after the event, was perpetrated in the neighbourhood of Hexham at the beginning of the year 1826. The victim, an old man of 76, was well known over all the country side as an honest, industrious, and kindly character.

Joseph Hedley, better known as Joe the Quilter, had essayed in early life to be a tailor. He does not appear to have taken kindly to the goose, nor the goose to him, and he turned out to be but a useless knight of the thimble. But Joe had a good genius of his own. Although cutting coats and trousers was not in his way, and although sewing seams was far from being his peculiar forte, yet he developed a faculty for delineating flowers, fruit, and figures, which in time led him to adopt the profession of "quilting." There were no sewing machines in those days. Nought but the swiftly plied needle vied with the knitting wires in creating the new or repairing the old. There seems, therefore, to have existed a good field for the operations of a quilter. It is hardly necessary to say how quilts of those days were made, or to describe them minutely when executed. Quilts of all days, we daresay, since quilts were made, have been much the same. Joe showed exquisite taste in devising the 