ABOUT COAL.
I am sitting by my sea-coal fire, and, from the clear way in which it
burns, and the peculiarly pleasant warmth it seems to give out, I have
every reason to believe that the thermometer is below the freezing point,
that the ground is hard as iron, and that before to-morrow's sun rises,
Jack Frost will not only have lavishly strewn the earth with pearls, but
have sketched fairy landscapes innumerable on my window-panes. Ah, well,
it matters little to me:
"The storm without might rain and ristle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle."
The respected partner of my joys and sorrows has retired to roost, far
away in the nursery the maternal pledges of our affection have done
ditto. Unless an amorous member of that inestimable class of public
servants--the metropolitan police--be at this moment engaged in a furtive
flirtation with the cook, I have no reason to believe that, beside
myself, any of my limited establishment is awake. My boots are off--I
have an old coat on--I have done my day's work--I don't owe anybody any
money (the reader need not believe this)--I poke the fire--I light a
cigar--and think there is nothing like a good fire after all.
I am thankful I am not in Paris now: I take down my French Pocket
Dictionary, published by Orr in 1850, and cannot find the French for
fire-place; I find firearms, fire-ball, fire-brand, fire-brush,
fire-cross, fire-lock, but no fire-place. Ah, here it is (fire-side,
_foyer_--substantive, masculine); but, to make quite sure, I turn to the
French-English, and I turn up _foyer_ there; and, here, I find it means,
"heat, tiring-room, green-room," and so on. Well, am I not right? there
is nothing like an English fire-place after all. The Germans are not
much better off than the French; the German porcelain stove, for
instance, standing in the middle of the room, like a monument, and nearly
filling it, is not for a second to be compared with a jolly English fire;
besides, it is very dangerous, and, when the flue gets stopped is, I was
going to write, as great a murderer as a medical man. Can I ever forget
how when I lived in the Kirchen Strasse of a far-famed and delightful
city, distant about 700 miles from where I write, how one morning I came
down-stairs to have my _fruhstuck_, and how, in the very middle of my
meal, I felt an uncomfortable sensation, as a gigantic Dane was reading
to me a memorial he was about to address to the British government? May
I tell the reader how at first I thought the document to which I have
referred might have something to do with it? Will he forgive me, if I
narrate how, at length, I gradually came to the conclusion that the cause
was in the atmosphere, which seemed to be splitting my head, and swelling
out my body to the point of bursting? can he imagine my deplorable
situation when I became insensible, and when I recovered consciousness
found that I had been poisoned by the fumes of charcoal, and that I
should then and there have shuffled off this mortal coil, had not my
Danish friend, for a wonder, lifted up his eyes from his precious
document, and, seeing me go off, thrown open the window, and, in a
polyglottic way, called for help? Truly, then, may I say, that, for
comfort, and for safety, and for warmth, if you can have it pretty nearly
all to yourself, and do one side thoroughly first before you roast the
other, there is nothing like an English fireplace in the world.
Woe is me! the present generation,--a generation most assuredly wise in
its own eyes, can never know what I, and others verging on forty,
know--the real luxury of an English fire after travelling all night as an
outside passenger on the top, say, for instance, of the Royal London and
Yarmouth mail. Pardon my emotion, but I must shut my eyes, and endeavour
to recall the past. It is six o'clock on a night cold as that in which I
now write; I am at the ancient hostelry, now gone to the dogs, known as
the White Horse, Fetter Lane, on the top of the mail aforesaid. The
many-caped coachman, has clambered up into his seat; I sit by his side,
perched somewhat like a mummy; outside and in we are full of passengers.
The red-coated guard blows cheerily on the far-resounding horn. "Let
them go," says the coachman, and four faultless greys, impatient of
restraint, rush forth with their living load: in a twinkling we stoop
under the ancient gateway, and turn into Fetter Lane; now we cautiously
descend Holborn Hill, skilfully we are steered through Cheapside, past
the Mansion House, through Cornhill, along dark and sullen Leadenhall,
Whitechapel, all glaring with gas and butcher's meat; our driver gives
the horses their heads, and our pace becomes pleasant. We pass Bow
Church, and the bridge at Stratford, and now we have left the gaslights
far behind, above us is the grand dome of heaven studded with its myriads
of stars. Hedge and field far and near are covered with a mantle of
virgin snow. The traffic on the road has trodden it into firmness, and
on we speed till we reach Romford, not then as now known all over London
for its ales. I believe these ales are the occasion of an anecdote,
which I may here repeat:--Two friends went into a public-house and were
regaled plentifully with them, but not finding them so strong as they
wished were much disgusted, and rose to go; however, they had not gone
far before the ale began to tell; one traveller soon found himself in a
ditch on one side of the road, while his friend was prostrate in another.
"Holloa," said the one to the other, "that ale war'nt so bad as I
thought." "No, no," was the reply of his now apparently-satisfied
friend. But here we are at Romford. Fresh cattle are standing ready to
take the place of the four who have gallantly drawn us hither. But there
is time to jump down, and "have a drop of summut short," to catch a
glimpse from the most glorious of fires, and to feel for the buxom
landlady, and her clean and rosy-cheeked Hebes, very strong feelings of
personal regard. "All ready," cries the ostler, and away we rush from
this fairy land, as it seems to us, out into the cold dark night; the
guard blows his horn; curtains are drawn on one side as we pass, that,
out of warm rooms, curious eyes may look on us. The pikekeeper bids us,
for him, an unusually cheerful good-night, and by this time some of the
old pilots returning to Southwold, or Lowestoft, or Yarmouth, after
having been with vessels up the Thames, cheered by the contents of
various libations, wake the dull ear of night with songs occasionally
amatory, but chiefly of a nautical character; and if there is a
chorus,--why, we can all join in that; are we not jolly companions, every
one? Does not this beat railway travelling? "I believe you, my boys."
I say the present race of men have no conception of this. Why, look at a
London omnibus; for nine months out of the twelve a cockney can't ride,
even from the Bank to Pimlico, without getting inside. A friend of mine,
one of the good old sort, rides into town winter and summer outside a
distance of about nine miles. "Of course you wear a respirator," said a
young cockney to him. My friend only laughed. When the Royal Yarmouth
Mail ran its gay career, there were no respirators then. What if the
night were cold--what if snow laid heavily on the ground--what if railway
rugs were not; did we not sit close together and keep each other
warm--did we not smoke the most fragrant of weeds--did we not, while the
coach changed horses, jump down, and, rushing into the cosiest of
bar-parlours (forgive us, J. B. Gough), swallow brandy-and-water till our
faces were as scarlet peonies, and we tingled, down to the very soles of
our feet, with an unwonted heat? A coal fire then was a sight to cheer
the cockles of one's heart, to look forward to for one long stage, and to
think of for another. But times change, and we with them. The other day
I met one of our mail-coachmen ingloriously driving a two-pair buss
between the City and Norwood; he looked down at his horses and then up at
us with an expression Robson might have envied. Let me return to coal.
Gentle reader, did you ever go down a coal-pit?--I once did, and I think,
with Sheridan, it is hardly worth while going down one, when you might
just as well say you had been. I was a stranger then to coal-pits and
collieries, rather greener then than I am now, and had on a bran-new suit
of clothes and patent-leather boots, and thus accoutred I was let down
into the bowels of the earth, wandered along little ways in beds of coal,
past little nooks where black men were at work, or resting on lumps of
coal dining on bread-and-bacon, and drinking cold tea; and then there
were tramways, and horses drawing the coal to the mouth of the pit, and
boys to drive the horses, and boys to hold lamps, and all around you was
black coal, save where it shone with the reflection of your light, and
beneath you trod in mud, all made of coal-dust and water, of a character
to ruin patent-leather for ever. I was not sorry, I assure you, when I
left the lower regions, and was hauled up to the light of day. Once upon
a time, an exciseman at Merthyr Tydvil was overcome by liquor (for
excisemen are but men) and fell asleep. Excisemen are not generally a
very popular class of Her Majesty's subjects, and there are many who owe
them a grudge. This was the case with our hero. Accordingly, the enemy,
in the shape of half-a-dozen dusky colliers, made their appearance, and
deposited their unconscious prize,
"Full many a fathom deep,"
as Mr. Campbell says, in a coal pit. Alas! the inspiration of wine is
but short-lived. From his glorious dreams of marble halls the exciseman
awoke; wonderingly he opened his eyes and looked around. Where was he?
To what dark and dolorous shades had he been conveyed? That conscience
which does make cowards of us all answered the question:--he had been for
his sins conveyed to that fearful locality which a popular clergyman once
told his hearers he would not shock their feelings by naming in so
well-bred and respectable an assembly; there he was, far away from the
light of the sun and the haunts of men. Everything around him was dark
and drear. At length a faint glimmer of light appeared in the distance.
It came nearer and nearer, by its light he saw a form he thought
resembled the human, but of that he was not quite sure. The exciseman
felt with Hamlet:
"Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned.
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee."
Accordingly he spoke, and very naturally asked the new-corner, "Who are
you?" "Why, I was when I lived on earth an exciseman, but now I am--"
"You don't say so," exclaimed the interrogator, as sober as he ever was
in his life. But the joke had now been carried far enough, and the
exciseman gladly returned to the light of day, and the society of his
fellow-man.
A coal pit, or rather a coal country, such as that you see around Merthyr
Tydvil, or as you speed on by the Great Northern to Newcastle, does not
give you a bad idea of Pandemonium. A coal pit is generally situated by
the side of some bleak hill where there are but few signs of life. A
cloud of smoke from the engine, or engines, hangs heavily all round. The
workmen, of whom there may be hundreds, with the exception of a few boys,
who stand at the mouth of the pit to unload the coal waggons as they come
up, or to run them into the tram-road that connects them with the
neighbouring railroad, or canal, are all under-ground. If you descend, a
lighted candle is put into your hand, and you must grope your way as best
you can. If the vein of coal be a pretty good one you will be able to
walk comfortably without much trouble, but you must mind and not be run
over by the coal waggons always passing along. As you proceed you will
observe numerous passages on each side which lead to the stalls in which
the men work, and hard work it is, I can assure you: a great block is
first undermined, and then cut out by wedges driven into the solid coal;
I believe the work is chiefly contracted for at so much a ton. In these
little stalls the men sit, and dine, and smoke. Little else is to be
seen in a coal pit. There are doors by which the air is forced along the
different passages; there are engines by which the water is drained off;
there is constant communication between the upper and the lower world,
all going on with a methodical exactness which can only be violated with
loss of life. Let the engines cease, and possibly in a couple of hours
the pit may be filled with water. Let a workman, as is too often the
case, enter his stall with a candle instead of with a safety lamp, and an
explosion may occur which may be attended with the loss of many lives;
but the rule is care and regularity, each man doing his part in a general
whole. The mortality in coal mining is still unusually great. It is
ascertained that of the total number of 220,000 persons employed as
colliers, 1000 are killed annually--that is to say, the poor collier has
1000 more chances of being killed at his work than any one of the whole
travelling public has of being killed or injured on English railways.
Dr. Philip Holland read a paper on the subject at a recent meeting of the
Society of Arts. He stated that out of 8015 deaths by accidents in eight
years, 1984 (or about one-fourth) were caused by explosions. Remarkable
it is, that in the northern counties of Durham and Northumberland (in
which one-fourth of the coal is raised, and one-fifth of the collier
population employed) the average deaths per annum from explosions do not
exceed 21 out of 248; and as the average of such deaths for the whole
country, including the Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire
districts, is 105, so 143 lives yearly are lost because the precautions
against explosion proved to be effectual in the extreme north are
neglected in all the other districts. Equally remarkable it is that
falls of roof have caused nearly 1000 more deaths in the eight years than
explosions, although the latter chiefly excite public feeling. Here,
again, the extreme northern district affords a gratifying contrast with
the others, as, out of an average of 371 such accidents yearly, only 49
occur there. It is suggested that the comparative immunity of the north
from this cause of accident is attributable to the fact, that one man in
six belongs to the safety staff, who are charged with the superintendence
of ventilation, road, and prop making, &c. In other parts no such person
is employed, and the men in their anxiety to get coal neglect these
salutary means of safety. The next greatest number of fatal accidents
occurs in the shafts, 1734 in the eight years. Here, again, the cautious
north exhibits its superiority, its proportion of fatalities from this
source not being more than a fifth part of the proportion throughout the
country. Other fatalities there are, principally the result of bad
discipline, the employment of too large a proportion of boys under
fifteen years, the use of machinery where hand-pulling would be
preferable, the narrowness of the galleries, and such like. Dr. Holland
notices that the system of government inspection has, in the southern
coal districts, led to the discontinuance of the services of "viewers,"
or mine engineers, to direct the operations, which it never was intended
to do. Either these viewers must, as a rule, be reinstated, or the
government system of inspection must be enormously increased. Among the
means suggested to prevent accidents is that of making the coal owner
civilly responsible for accidents caused by the obvious neglect of
reasonable precautions in the working. In the course of the discussion
which followed, it was urged that the workers should no more be exempted
from the penal consequences of neglect than the employers.
Fancy--I can do it easily, over my sea-coal fire--fancy the coal dug out
of the pit, put into a waggon, that waggon put on a railway--travelling,
it may be, some distance, and depositing its precious burden in a
collier's hold; imagine this collier put to sea, and safely arrived in
the Thames. As Mr. Cobden said, "What next, and next?" Here a new
agency comes into play, the coal cannot come right to my fire. We leave
the collier at Gravesend and land, let us say, at Billingsgate--never
mind the fish, nor the porters, nor the fair dealers in marine products.
Come right away into Thames Street--cross it if you can, for this street,
of all London streets, bears away the palm for being blocked up at all
times and seasons, and this morning there has been a block lasting a
couple of hours; but the people here are used to it, and do not think it
worth while to have recourse to hard words, nor to repeat sounds very
much like oaths, nor to grow red in the face and threaten each other, as
is the case with the angry Jehus of Cheapside and Holborn Hill. We enter
a handsome building by a semi-circular portico, with Roman Doric columns,
and a tower 106 feet high. A beadle in magnificent livery, and of an
unusually civil character--for beadledom is generally a terror to our
species--meets us. We wish to see our friend; right into the middle of a
busy group of coal dealers and factors the beadle rushes, and repeats the
name of our friend; up one story, and then another, and then another, the
sound ascends; our friend hears it, and, rapidly descending, gives us a
welcome as warm as his own fire-side. We begin our voyage of
discovery:--first we descend and examine a Roman well, in excellent
preservation, discovered in excavating the foundation of the new
building. The water looks thick and muddy, but they tell you it is
clear: but the fact that it ebbs and flows seems to connect it with the
Thames; and Thames water, when taken opposite Billingsgate, is not
generally considered clear. We again ascend to the ground-floor, which
is a rotunda sixty feet in diameter, covered by a glazed dome
seventy-four feet from the floor. This circular hall has three tiers of
projecting galleries running round it; the floor is composed of 4000
pieces of inlaid wood, in the form of a mariner's compass; in the centre
is the city shield, anchor, &c., the dagger blade in the arms being a
piece of mulberry tree, planted by Peter the Great when he worked as a
shipwright in Deptford Dockyard. The place is worth coming to
see--country cousins ought to look at it; the entrance vestibule, Mr.
Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London," informs us, is richly embellished
with vases of fruit, arabesque foliage, terminal figures, &c. In the
rotunda, between the Raphaelesque scroll-supports, are panels painted
with impersonations of the coal-bearing rivers of England--the Thames,
Mersey, Severn, Trent, Humber, Aire, Tyne, &c.: and above them, within
flower borders, are figures of Wisdom, Fortitude, Vigilance, Temperance,
Perseverance, Watchfulness, Justice, and Faith. The arabesques in the
first story are views of coal mines--Wallsend, Percy, Pit Main, Regent's
Pit, &c. The second and third storey panels are painted with miners at
work; and the twenty-four ovals at the springing of the dome have, upon a
turquoise blue ground, figures of fossil plants found in coal formations.
The minor ornamentation is flowers, shells, snakes, lizards, and other
reptiles, miners' tools and nautical subjects;--there you can see all the
process of coal mining, without troubling yourself to go down a mine, and
in a small museum, too small for such a grand building and such a wealthy
trade, curious specimens of fossil products and coal will make the
observer still more learned; but let us look at the living mass beneath.
Some of the men below are famous city names. There sometimes you may see
Sir James Duke, who came to London a clerk, poor and under-paid, on board
a man-of-war, and who on this Coal Exchange has made a colossal fortune,
and who was made a baronet, he being at the time Lord Mayor, when the New
Exchange was opened by Prince Albert, on the 29th Oct., 1849, accompanied
by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. Here oftener you may see
Hugh Taylor, M.P., who began life as a cabin-boy, then became a captain,
then was developed into a coal-owner, and who is said to be a perfect
Midas, and possesses an art, very much, thought of by city people, of
turning everything he touches into gold. On a door just below where we
stand is inscribed the name of Lord Ward, for even noblemen don't mind
sullying their fingers with vulgar trade, if anything is to be made by
it. And there is the name of a Welsh coal-owner, who, some fifty years
back, was a clerk in a certain timber merchant's, at a guinea a week, and
who now, I believe, can raise and ship a couple of thousand tons of coal
a day. Depend upon it there is some money made by these black diamonds,
and the corporation of London know it, for they have managed to get a tax
levied of one penny on every ton of coals, whether brought by sea or rail
within thirty miles of where we stand. What they do with the enormous
sum thus collected it is impossible to say; it is true they built this
handsome Exchange, at a cost altogether of 91,167 pounds 11s. 8d., but
that is a small part of their receipts. When the tax was first levied it
did not much matter; about the year 1550 one or two ships sufficed for
the coal trade of London. On Friday, December 2nd, 1859, the number of
ships with cargoes for sale on that day was not less than 340--and on an
average each ship employed in the coal trade carries 300 tons of coal.
In the month of October alone there were brought into the London markets
283,849 tons by sea, and by rail 95,195 tons and three-quarters. Of
course in winter time the trade is very brisk. The retail dealers in the
metropolis will tell you that a few cold days make an enormous difference
in the sale of coals, and the large dealers are driven to their wits' end
as to how they can find enough waggons and horses to enable them to
supply their customers. In the large coal-yards in the winter time the
men are at work from five in the morning till late, very late, at night.
I am thankful for their industry, I hope they are well paid.
But I have not yet said how the business at the Coal Exchange is carried
on. There are two classes of men connected with the place,--the factors,
who have a handsomely furnished room up above, and who elect each other
by ballot,--and the merchants, who have a room below, to which they pay
so much a year, and to the use of which they also are elected by ballot.
On the topmost story of all are the offices of the gentlemen who collect
the city dues, and render themselves useful in similar ways. When the
colliers arrive at Gravesend, a messenger is sent up with their names and
the number of coals on board, and so on. Each ship is consigned to a
London factor, and in the official room is a large case full of
pigeon-holes, in which the papers for each factor are deposited; these
papers are collected by the factor's clerks, and with these the factor
goes into the market to sell; for if he does not sell--unless the charter
party permit him to wait for a second market day--he has to pay a
demurrage of three-halfpence a ton, a demurrage, however, often submitted
to rather than the coals should be sold at a loss of a shilling per ton.
A bell rings at twelve, and all at once you see, by the sudden apparition
of merchants and factors from the surrounding offices, that business has
commenced; however, little is done till towards the close at two, the
factors till then holding out for high prices, and the merchants holding
back. I may add that there is very little speculation in this trade, all
is fair and above-board. In the rooms of the factors, as well as of the
merchants, is a daily list of what vessels have arrived at Gravesend,
with what amount of cargo, and what vessels are on their way, and how
many are going up to the north in ballast; thus the buyer knows as much
about the state of the trade as the seller--and as he thinks the factor
must sell before the market is over, he waits till the very last before
he concludes his bargain. At the end of the market, when there is a
heavy sale, people get a little excited. They are also rather more
numerous and noisy than when you first entered, and, besides the regular
dealers, a good many others are present: sailors out of curiosity,
captains who want to know who are the purchasers of their coals, and
where they are to deliver them to; general dealers, who do not belong
either to the Factor's Society or that of the Coal Merchants'; and here
and there a lady may be seen gazing with curious eyes on the groups
below. When the sales are effected, the broker pays the city dues--for
bulk must not be broken till then under a penalty of five hundred
pounds--and a gentleman attests the purchases, and publishes them in a
list, sent that evening to all subscribers as the real authenticated
state of the markets for that day. I may as well say that the
market-days are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. By way of compendium, I
add, that the price of coals, as given in the daily newspapers, is the
price up to the time when the coals are _whipped_ from the ship to the
merchants' barges. It includes, 1st, the value of the coals at the pit's
mouth; 2nd, the expense of transit from the pit to the ship; 3rd, the
freight of the ship to London; 4th, the dues; and 5th, the whipping. The
public then has to pay, 6th, the merchant for taking it to his wharf and
keeping it there, and his profit; and, 7th, the retailer for fetching it
from the merchant's, and bringing it to their doors. Of course you may
save something by going at once to the merchant's. The poor cannot do
this, and have to pay an extra price on this, as on almost everything
they consume.
And now once more I am by my sea-coal fire, burning up cheerily in this
bleak winter night. Let me light up another cigar, and indulge in a
reverie. I am in a Welsh port on the Bristol Channel. Yesterday it was
a small borough, with an ancient castle, and an appearance of dirt, and
poverty, and age. To-day its moors have become docks, or covered with
iron roads, its few streets, but lately deserted, now stretch far away
and are teeming with busy life. Where the heron flew with heavy
wings,--where the sportsman wandered in search of fowl,--where idle boys
played, thousands of habitations and warehouses have been planted. There
the snort of the iron horse is heard morning, noon, and night. There the
ships of almost every country under heaven float. There you meet German,
and French, and Dane, and American, and Italian, and Greek. What
collects that many-coloured and many-language-speaking crowd? Where has
come the money to build those big warehouses, to excavate those capacious
docks, to plant those iron rails, to make on this ancient desert a Babel
busier and more populous than Tyre or Sidon of old? The answer is soon
given. Up those bleak hills, a few miles away, are the coal-works, a
little further still are more, a little further still are more, beyond
them are the iron-works, and thus we go on, coal and iron everywhere, all
fast being changed by magic industry into gold. Nature has destined
England to be the workshop of the world. She sent here the Saxon race,
she filled the bowels of the land with ores more valuable than those of
Potosi. To France and Spain she gave wine; to the countries lying on the
Baltic, timber and grain; to Russia, hemp and tallow; to Lombardy, its
rich silk; to Calabria, its oil; to Ceylon, its spices; to Persia, its
pearls; to America, its cotton; to China, its tea; to California, its
glittering gold; but she has given us the iron and the coal--without
which all her other gifts were vain--and with which all the others can be
bought. To the rank we take amidst the nations of the earth, from the
first we were destined. Ours is not the blue sky of Italy, nor the warm
breath of the sunny south, but it is an atmosphere that fits man for
persevering industry and daily toil. Let us, then, brace ourselves up
for our mission. Let us proclaim the dignity of labour--its beneficent
effects--its more than magical results. Let us honour the workman,
whether he stand at the loom or plough the field--or sail
"--Beyond the sunset
Or the baths of all the western stars,"
or labour in the dark and dangerous recesses of the mine. Thus shall we
build up a barricade against the murderous art of war, teach all the
world the advantages of peace, and make manifest to the nations how to
live.
One word more--don't let the reader go away with the idea that there is
likely to be a dearth of coals in his time. Let him make merry by his
own fireside, and not vex his small brain about what the world will be
when the years have died away. A writer in the _Times_, of May 24th,
1860, says, "As a good deal of anxiety has been recently shown regarding
the probable extinction of the resources of steam coal in Wales, it may
be interesting to state that, by the successful results of the
prosecution for the last five years of the operations of the Navigation
Works at Aberdare, near Merthyr, all fears upon the subject may be
discarded. This pit is the largest in the world, being 18 feet in
diameter and 370 yards in depth. The estimate of its workings is 1000
tons per day. The expenses thus far have been 130,000 pounds, exclusive
of the value of waggons, &c.--35,000 pounds. The ground is of a most
difficult nature, the layers often extending 15 feet without a bed,
crack, fissure, or any opening whatever. The rock had all to be blasted
with gunpowder. The resources of the seam are comparatively boundless,
the property extending seven miles from Taff up to Cwm Neal, and three
miles in width, covering 4000 to 5000 acres of '4 foot coal.' The
royalty is for 99 years, and is held by a firm, composed of Mr. John
Nixon, the well-known colliery proprietor at Merthyr; Mr. Hugh Taylor,
M.P. for Tynemouth; and Mr. W. Cory, the large coal contractor of London.
The commencement of the use of this smokeless coal afloat began about
1840, on board the Thames steamboats, to work Penn's engines. In the
same year a cargo was shipped to Nantes, and given away to the French for
trial, with the sole condition that the engineer should throw it into the
furnaces and leave it alone to stoke itself. Next, the sugar refiners
adopted it, as they suffered considerably if the steam was not kept up to
a pressure of 50lbs., and if allowed to fall below that rate their works
were completely stopped. With the Welsh coal they cleaned out their
fires but once instead of twice, and thereby effected a saving in the
working day of three hours and a half. The French river steamers
followed, and here the only objection raised was, that without the long
trail of smoke from the funnel their customers would not be able to see
their vessels approaching from a distance. The French Government then
became convinced of its efficiency, and, adopting it, have adhered to its
exclusive use ever since. Other Governments have likewise profited by
its advantages: but, although it is consumed in the Peninsular and
Oriental Company's fleet, the Royal Mail, Cunard's, and others, the
English Government has not hitherto availed itself of it. The embryo
town of Mountain Ash, with already a population of 5,000, has recently
been the scene of great rejoicings, as the 'winning' or striking of so
enormous a seam it is expected will bring with it additional prosperity
and considerable increase to its neighbourhood."