BLACK DIAMONDS. 339 



medicinal purposes. It has been attempted to show that the ancient 

 Britons used it, but there is no satisfactory evidence on the subject 

 prior to the later days of the Roman occupation, and it is not until the 

 thirteenth century that we obtain clear proof that it was systematically 

 raised for fuel in England. In December, 1239, King Henry III. 

 granted a charter for this purpose to the townsmen of Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, and the coal soon found its way to London ; but the complaints 

 against it became so great, as it got to be more and more used, and the 

 city more smoky, that in 1306, on petition of Parliament, " King Ed- 

 ward I. by proclamation prohibyted the burneing of sea coale in Lon- 

 don and the suburbs to avoid the sulferous smoke and savour of the 

 firing, and commanded all persons to make their fires of wood" (Stow). 

 Nevertheless in about fifteen years it effected a lodgment even in the 

 royal palace, for in 1321-1322, in the " Petitiones in Parliamento," a 

 claim is made for ten shillings on account of fuel of that sort which 

 had been ordered by the clerk of the palace, and burned at the king's 

 coronation, but neglected to be paid for. 



On the Continent of Europe the earliest coal known was in the 

 tenth century, in the coal-basin of Zwickau in Saxony, bui in 1348 

 the metal-workers of that town were forbidden to pollute the air with 

 coal-smoke. 



In England, in 1577, an old writer (Harrison), in contrasting the 

 burning of coal in chimneys and of wood without them, alludes to this 

 prejudice when he says : " Now we have many chimnyes, and yet our 

 tenderlings complain of rewmes, catarres and poses ; then had we none 

 but reredoses, and our heads did never ake. For as the smoke in 

 those days was supposed to be a sufficient harding for the timber of 

 the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep the good 

 man and his family from the quacke or pose, where with, as then very 

 few were acquainted. There are old men yet dwelling in the village 

 where I remain, which have noted the multitude of chimnyes lately 

 erected, whereas in their yoong days there was not above two or three, 

 if so many, in the most uplandish towns of the realme, but each one 

 made his fire against the reredose in the halle where he dined and 

 dressed his meate." In 1632 the historian, Stow, remarks, that " with- 

 in thirty years last, the nice dames of London would not come into any 

 house or roome where sea coales were burned, nor willingly eat of the 

 meate that was either sod or roasted with sea coale fire." In some 

 parts of France the prejudice against the fuel extended even to within 

 our own day — in 1840 — for St. John, in his "Journal of a Residence in 

 Normandy," mentions that Dr. Bennett, a Protestant clergyman, told 

 him that " he had received orders to quit his house, because he burned 

 coal ; and another English gentleman at Caen', who had invited a large 

 party, finding his drawing-room very thin, and inquiring the reason, 

 found that the French had staid away because it teas understood he 

 burned coal." 



