Evidently the fact that navvies tended to move around the country in all-male bands was one of the major causes of concern.
Not surprisingly, therefore, given their unruly reputation, newspapers and periodicals were quick to seize upon examples of navvy loyalty wherever and whenever they occurred.
Modern traces of these traditions haunted the tunnel even after it was completed, if with less foundation than for the navvies.
The press of the day gave glowing accounts of the navvies' achievements.
However, most contemporary accounts of navvies tended to stigmatize them as an insubordinate, unruly, and ungovernable class of men.
It may be noted that the railways were more pervasive than the canals, the construction of which had also of course involved large numbers of navvies.
For it does not matter if the promotion under consideration is to being foreman of a gang of navvies or to managing director of a large corporation.
There is, moreover, little or no visual communication among them; even the navvies are apparently separate from one another while being engaged in the same task.
