The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-02-26

Coal Digging and Coal Selling I'm
wheeling and VIcinIBy---What the
People Pay for, and what they Actin.
ally Get---A Matter that Needs Look
Ing into.
Editors LJltelligencer
The coal miners of this city, think
that the time has arrived when the
relative position now existing between
coal merchants, their operatives and
the consumers, should, in its unyar-
nished truth, be laid before the public.
We, as class, are aware that by mis-
representation, the public are made to
believe that we are anything but hon
est men. They are never informed that
at our daily toll we are inhaIing inn
pure and noSious gas, commonly call
ed carbonic acid gas, which gradually
takes away the health of the coal dig
ger, makes him n premature old man.
and dooms him to an untimely grave
Perhaps the public are not aware that
this great evil could be remedied at the
expense of a few dollars. Yet the dol
lar is the God that is worshipped and
the coal digger has to be sacrificed II nj
his shrine. The matter of most
Importance to the public Is
how we are paid for our labor
and what the consumers are CHARGED
for the coal in this city. The coal die
ger IS supposed to be paid four dollars
digsi each car load is supposed TO con-
tain twenty-five bushels-this would be
honest and fair if the consumer receiy-
ed that car load as it came out. but he
does motif is put through n screen and
about ten bushels of nut coal and slack
taken from it-this is sold by itself for
four dollars per hundred bushels Mt the
bank, and if delivered the consumer is
charged one dollar and TWENTY-FIVE
cents per load of twenty-five bushels
All this nut coal or slack the coal liu
ger gets nothing for raising, neither
does the consumer get 1t unless he paws
for it; it therefore goes into the pocEet
of the boss as windfall. The public
may ask how this can occur when the
nominal measure of the wagon is only
twenty-five bushels? The Question Is
answered thus; the measure is
notooriously false in nearly all coal
banks in this city. There is one
bank, which shall be at present name.
less, where some short time since the
city supervisor branded two neyE-
wagons twenty-five bushel, water meas
ure. These wagons have TO be heaped
up full. The coal digger is only paid
for twenty-five bushel, and that meas
nre Is soIu TO the consumer for twenty
i've, and they are the two smallest cars
now running in the bank. by five
bushel- This, believe. is done in VIC
latiou of law of this State made and
provided, that all coal shall be bought
and sold by weight. With regard to
hitchletown, 1t Is still worse; the sys-
tenn OF population in that section is
getting beyond human endurance. At
one bank the coal digger is raising one
hundred and twenty-five bushels on
screened or raked coal, and is only
paid the price of one hundred bushels;
YET the consumer gets only four cars
ior every hundred bushels, or, to make
the matter more plain and distinct, in
the cars now running in thar
bank, the coal digger is paid for
twenty bushels only, Yet the
same car is sold to the consumer
LOT tNenty-hve- l am taking up
more than intended of your yalTIahIs
space, and will not at present revert to 1
the system of filling two and three |
kinds OF coal, which causes the coal !
mines of Ritchietown to raise coal q |
of cent less per bushel that the CITY |