Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1876-12-09
OUR CORRESPONDENCE.
Straight Shots at the Existing
System Of Coal Trading.
CENTREvILLE, MD., Dec. l, 1876.

Cumberland and Georgetown, D. G.,
were in great distress, owing to the
fact that their earnings had been very
small during the past season, and that
many of them had been so d out by
the sheriff. 1t was also stated that
these men had carried coal between
the two points for from 65 cents, the
lowest, to 81, the highest, per ton.
No doubt great reason for these low
prices can be found in the stringency
of the times, which has brought prices
of every article of merchandise to a
very low figure, but it seems strange
that operators do not, when one source
Of demand, in part, fails them, seek
others, instead Of cutting prices to
compete with each other for the old
market. The disposition to reduce
wages of honest and skilled labor is a
moan way to remedy the evil of slack
demand.
The reasonable sum Of SIS cents per
ton for mining is low enough, vhsn it
is taken into consideration the risk to
life and limb, and the hardships en-
dured by the miner. Ho does not
ask for palace to live in, nor sump-
tuous fare from day to day; neither
does he ask for horses and carriages to
ride and drive in elegant leisure. His
library is meagre snd confined to a
few we'll worn books and his county
newspaper. His children 50 to the
public schools, and not to q far off and
hlgh-priced institution of learning.
He literally earns his own and his
familys bread and the ordinary com
forts of life by the sweat of his brow,
according to the Scriptural injunction,
and at the moderate sum of G5 cents
Ter ton for digging coal. No middle
man pays him an unaarned profit no
company hands him an unearned diyi-
dend.
And what ia true Of the coal miner
is, to certain extent, true of the boat
man Who carries the coal to the market,
an overdone, crowded, glutted mark
ct, where the large buyer commands
the situation and pays what he plea3es,
and tells the operator and seller to
make himself whole from the blood
and sinew Of tie honest and hard
working lsborer who digs his life
away under ground, or from the boat
man who tediously braves the storms
Of winter and heat of summer, lives
poorly and walks humbly before God
and man.
Except before the doors of few
rich mems houses in Georgetown,
Washington and Baltimore, and per
haps, of few clubhouses, where lux
ury is found, do we ever see dumped
load of Allegany county coal? When
it is seen the pile looks inGnitesimally
small in comparison with the heaps
and piles Of other fuel before every
other mans door and every institu-
tion in the cities.
The Western Maryland railroad
never carries coal from your section
through the wide country it trsverses,
to the towns along its route, although
an easy and convenient connection is
made, or could be made, with the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Ths
peninsula of Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia and the Western Shore Of
Maryland, all easily accessible by
water from Georgetown and Baltimore,
do not know what coal from your sec
ton is like. Instead, however, thou
sands Of small sailing crafts carry
millions of tons of anthracite coal to
all the country mentioned last, and a
large market is thus secured by these
more catetp4iStng operators, who send
their coal to Harve d. Grace by canal,
from the upper portion OF Pennsyl-
vania, and SO distribute it in every
channel Of acceptance. The Philadel-
phia, Wilmington and Baltimore rail
road has branch road running from
Wilmington to Crisfeld, the lower ex-
tremity of the peninsula of Maryland,
1t has some nine spurs or branches,
running off to the eastward and west
ward, tapping all the little towns ly-
ing off from the main branch, reach
ing the Chesapeake bay and the bay
towns on one side, and the Delaware
bay and ocean towns on the other.
| Curious to learn what sort of coal en-
gines of these roads used, was in
formed they found the Clearfeld coal
| in large quantities in the Philadel phia