1831.] Coal Duty, and Coal Trickery. 265 



more advantageously than it weighs. The same quantity in a broken 

 state will fill up a given measure sooner than in an unbroken state. The 

 difference is very much greater than would be at first imagined by any 

 one. A cubic yard of coal will break into small pieces that will fill a 

 space of almost double the dimensions. The consequence is, that what 

 is sold as a chaldron of coals at the screening place, before it comes to 

 the consumer's cellars, gets broken often into a chaldron and a half, 

 and never less, certainly, than a chaldron and a third. At every change 

 of hands, from the shipper to the retailer, in succession, the coals get a 

 new breaking, till finally, the lowest dealer depends wholly for his pro- 

 fit upon the breakage ; and thus the poor get nothing but dust, and 

 every body else is compelled to burn a bad article instead of a good one. 

 The complaint of small coal is universal, and here is the obvious cause. 

 A change from measuring to weighing would, first and last, effect a dimi- 

 nution in the ultimate cost of another six shillings. 



Every body complains, we say, of coals, and is ready enough to 

 suspect all is not right in the dealer. But people direct their suspicions 

 to the wrong point. If they have full measure, with a few roundish 

 coals, they seem to themselves to have justice, or at least, all that is 

 within their reach. But this full measure, we see, is no security against 

 their being cheated. The more coal is broken, the greater space it fills. 

 The more coal is broken, the more the consumer is cheated ; and there- 

 fore every man may judge for himself to what extent he is cheated; but, 

 under the existing laws, he has no remedy. To change his dealer, is 

 of little use ; for, of course, every dealer breaks. The tacit combina- 

 tion of the coal-merchants is universal for small coal, in London, is uni- 

 versal; and complaint is answered by an impudent assurance that it is 

 the nature of the coal. Not one in a thousand knows, or at least 

 believes that nothing but large coal is shipped, and that it is pounded in 

 its passage through the hands of successive dealers. 



But, even if coals were sold by weight, the seller, it is hastily said, 

 will add to their weight by welting, and so nothing will be gained it 

 will be but a shifting of fraud. Nobody, of course, hopes to obtain 

 perfect security against all fraud. The grasping spirit of trade is 

 cunning almost past finding out ; but wetting coal is not a source of 

 fraud that will even pay its own expence. Every man can see if 

 the coals which are brought to his cellar are wet ; and the fault is his 

 own if he takes them in such state, while the option is with him to 

 refuse them. The matter has been put to the test of experiment. Two 

 hundred- weight of coal, or 228 Ibs. were thoroughly wetted, and put 

 into a wet sack, and immediately weighed. They had gained 28 Ibs., or 

 one eighth. After standing one hour they will drain the additional 

 weight was reduced to 20f Ibs. ; at the end of three hours, it was only 

 14 Ibs. ; arid at the end of six hours, when the weight was still farther 

 reduced, the coals were, after all, too wet to be sent to a consumer. 

 These, it will be observed, were small coals. 



Good-sized coals every one will recognize the .force of the term 

 without our closely defining the dimensions when they were wetted 

 and weighed in the same way, were found at the end of three hours to 

 have gained only 6| Ibs. on the two hundred- weight ; and what every 

 one would call large coals, treated in the same way, at the end of the 

 same number of hours, gained only 4 Ibs, , Nothing, therefore, is to be 

 apprehended from wetting, whatever other frauds the sagacity and 

 cunning of the craft may eventually discover. Measuring, in short, 

 upon the authority of facts, beyond the daring of contradiction, occa- 



M.M. New Scries.VoL. XI. No. 63. 2 M 



