THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 271 



Schuylkill Canal, and also $19,000,000 more, being 

 the amount of its recent investment in coal mines. 

 The Delaware & Hudson Canal Company has doubled 

 its stock and debt since 1864, and the Delaware, 

 Lackawanna & Western and Lehigh Valley com- 

 panies have multiplied the nominal amount of their in- 

 vestment by three, the stock of the two companies last 

 named having been raised from $13,500,000 to $41,- 

 000,000, and the debt from $5,000,000 to $19,000,000. 

 (See Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United 

 States.] We suspect the managers of these corporations 

 think it looks better to distribute among the share- 

 holders ten per cent, on twenty .millions of nominal 

 capital than twenty per cent, on half the amount. 



" In those parts of the country where anthracite coal 

 is used, the consumption is reckoned at one ton a year, 

 for each inhabitant. A family of six will burn six tons, 

 and will pay this winter a special tax of from ten to 

 twelve dollars in order that these great coal corporations 

 may do a little better than paying only ten per cent, on 

 their watered stocks. ' The exceptionally low price in 

 America during the past year,' say the managers of the 

 Reading Railroad in their report, ' has introduced coal 

 in competition with wood into districts where it never 

 had been sent before ; and it is well-known that when 

 the appliances for burning anthracite coal are. once in- 

 troduced, and the advantages of that fuel once under- 

 stood, it is never displaced by any other.' We are 

 wedded to the glowing anthracite as the Englishman is 

 wedded to his beer. The corporations have found it 

 out, and have fixed the excise accordingly." 



At the time these pages are passing through the 

 press, coal is selling in New York for seven dollars a 



