The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-25

drawing each ton of that coal from Wilkes
barre to tidewater, SLIGO, (actual market
rate; recently raised from $3.50. six tons 70
a car, equals $500 for each car; 100 cars
in the train equals $3.50. Need we look
any further for the baron? But stir up
the fire; we must keep warm.
Up to this point, as we have seen, the
coal has been handled only once, when the
miner shoveled IL into his wagon. The
train moves leisurely off, sneaking along
by night, on Sundays. whenever the tracks
are clearest. II Is only a short run, even
at low speed. to Perth Amboy or Port
Johnson, the two ports where the bulk of
New York's coal is received. There again
the coal is not tuched by hand. The cars
run on trestie. and the coal shoots
through chutes to canalboats that are
waiting for It. Five, ten, a dozen canal
boats are loaded In jiffy, and a tug
brings them all to the city.
But you do not get your coal yet. 1t must
go through the hands of the wholesaler,
the retailer, and, If you are very poor. OF
the petty retailer. each of whom naturally
must make little out of It, The whole
saler has sent his order to the mines for
a hundred tons of nut coal and here 1t is,
in the canal-boat lying at his wharf II
he has one. But the coal is not to lie in
his yard If he can help it. In his turn he
has advance orders from the retailers. five
tons here. ten there. and so on. A big
steam scoop shovels up a ton of coal at a
time and drops It into the wholesalers wa
gon, and off goes the wagon to the retail
er's yard. II the retailer has enough orr
ders waiting the coal does not go to his
yard, but sometimes. though not often,
goes direct to the customer, and is shunted
into his cellar without being once touched
by hand since the miner shoveied 1t into
his wagon.
However, VIC will follow It to the retail
er's yard. A singular chemical change
takes place ia the coal there. The ton that
the retailer bought weighed e,2i0 pounds,
the ton that he sells you weighs only 2,Oo
pounds. That is law and custom. A tonNof
wholesale coal Is a ''long" ton: ton at
retail is a short" ton. Never mind that;
be thankful If you get your 2,OOO.
The retailer reckons that he must sell
his coal for 81 a ton more than he paid for
IL. OF this the delivery costs him 40 cents
a ton and "trackage" 10 cents ton.
Trackage is another little slice the rail-
roads get out of il. This leaves him theo-
retically net profit of 20 cents a ton; but
al present this profit Is purely theoretical
as II has been for some time. Competition
Is so fierce here that the retailer has to
give little of his own profit TO sell his
coal. Wouldn't the companies take of
little In such case? You might ask them
The poor, abused retailerl After the way
we hurry him for coal, and then make him
walt for his money. so cents a ton is none
too much for him.
The retailers bins are elevated, so that
the coal is shunted, not shoveled, into his
wagons, provided his yard is properly ar
ranged. He shunts Il also into your cellar.
From the time It left the mine. no shovel
touched it until Alphonse brought us up
that last scuttlefuI
The small vendor of the east side does
not sell the kind OF coal that we have here
in the crate. He gets a much higher price
and sells a very inferior article. so pinch
Ing his customers little at each end. He
buys by weight and sells by measure-by
the pailful, usually at 10 cents a pail. He
buys what the dealers call "free-burning
anthracite" the softest kind of anthracite
coal, almost as soft as bituminous. This
coal Is so light that the bulk of a ton is
much greater than the bulk of a ton OF
such coal as we use. That is precisely
what he wants Out OF ton of that light
coal he gets from 80 to 100 pals, which, at
10 cents a pail. gives him between 50 and
$40 ton, nearly doubling his money.
With coal retailing at $585, this Is where
our money goes: To the mine owner. S2.76:
to the railroads, $1.G0; to the wholesaler,
20 cents and to the retailer 81; total $685.
That s1.60 TO the railroads Is a large slice:
but, on the other band, fully $3.50 out of
the whole sum is paid for labor-labor in
the mine, on the railroad, and in the coal
yards. Caught and squeezed between
these two great forces, railroads and la
Dor. how can we hope to keep warm any
cheaper?