DEPRESSED CONDITION OF WORKS. 101 



chance to pass through them. They say, " Oh ! they are 

 farther back." Aye, there's the rub. It is because they 

 are so far back that they are not come-at-able. It is just 

 because all the available woods are cut down except those 

 that are still young and not worth the felling within 

 reasonably accessible distances from the works and centres 

 of Hfe and business. And it is this rapid, reckless diminu- 

 tion of their forests, and the increasing scarcity of charcoal 

 fuel that now brings up the prime cost of their iron to 

 almost a prohibitory figure in so far as competition with 

 the foreign market in Nijni-Novgorod fair is concerned. 

 A few years back, when iron was up at such exorbitant 

 fancy prices, they did make money, in some cases cent, 

 per cent. ; but when it is at its normal value they cannot 

 sell their iron or copper at the fair at anything like a re- 

 munerative price, and yet the sheet-iron from some of the 

 principal works is said to be the best in the world, for one 

 main reason, because it is made entirely by charcoal from 

 beginning to end, and it is this that gives it such a rare 

 softness and such a fine polish as it possesses. When 

 they begin to make puddled iron from their anthracite 

 coal they will have no chance at all unless they entirely 

 prohibit the importation of iron, for which prohibition 

 many of them have been crying for a long time. Bat 

 surely that is not to be thought of; and even if it were 

 granted nine-tenths of the owners of these mines have no 

 funds wherewith to effect the requisite reconstruction of 

 the furnaces : they are all so deeply involved, I may say 

 inextricably involved, with the Government, by loans 

 which they have obtained. Shall I describe how they 

 manage this business ? 



' The beginning of their working year is immediately 

 after the great Nijni fair, held in the end of August. 

 Then all their labouring hands are ready to re-commence 

 work, having returned to the zavods from their month of 

 hay harvesting on their own account. At each zavod there 

 is then made out an estimate of the quantity of iron and 

 copper to be made in the course of the ensuing year ; of 



