THE LIMITS OF OUR COAL SUPPLY. 191 



peting iron-works ; but the whole world would partake of 

 our calamity, and the attention of all mankind would be 

 aroused to the sinfulness of wasting coal. Six months of 

 compulsory wood and peat fuel, with total stoppage of iron 

 supplies, would convince the people of these islands that 

 waste of coal is even more sinful than waste of bread, 

 would lead us to reflect on the fact that our stock of coal 

 is a definite and limited quantity that was placed in the 

 present storehouse long before human beings came upon 

 the earth ; that every ton of coal that is wasted is lost for 

 ever, and cannot be replaced by any human -effort, while 

 bread is a product of human industry, and its waste may 

 be replaced by additional human labor ; that the sin of 

 bread-wasting does admit of agricultural atonement, while 

 there is no form of practical repentance that can positively 

 and directly replace a hundredweight of wasted coal. 



Nothing short of the practical and impressive lesson of 

 bitter want is likely to drive from our households that 

 wretched fetish of British adoration, the open "English- 

 man's fireside." Eeason seems powerless against the super- 

 stition of this form of fire-worship. Tell one of the 

 idolaters that his household god is wasteful and extravagant, 

 that five-sixths of the heat from his coal goes up the 

 chimney, and he replies, " I don't care if it does ; I can 

 afford to pay for it. I like to see the fire, and have the 

 right to waste what is my own." Tell him that healthful 

 ventilation is impossible while the lower part of a room 

 opens widely into a heated shaft, that forces currents of 

 cold air through doors and Avindow leakages, which unite 

 to form a perpetual chilbrain stratum on the floor, and 

 leaves all above the mantel-piece comparatively stagnant. 

 Tell him that no such things as "draughts" should exist 

 in a properly warmed and ventilated house, and that even 

 with a thermometer at zero outside, every part of a well- 

 ordered apartment should be equally habitable, instead of 

 merely a semicircle about the hearth of the fire-worshiper ; 

 he shuts his ears, locks up his understanding, because his 

 grandfather and grandmother believed that the open- 

 mouthed chimney was the one and only true English means 

 of ventilation. 



