Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-10-08
COAL AND OIL RISE.

Horrors Threaten the Thousands of
New Yorl<,s Poor.
A New York special says: Nine dol
lars a ton is the price of soft coal in
New York to-day.
Anthracite has no price; it is all mat
ter of how badly it is wanted. One lot
of five tons was sold for s125 by a dealer,
and s. cents bushel is now being asked
in some cellars along Twelfth avenue.
Tho New York World says:
ITO make the hardship and suffering
more acute because of the famine in
hard COAL the presidents of the great
coal-carrying railroads have banded to-
gether and now refuse to haul soft coal
to New York in sufficient quantities to
give partial relief. With thousands and
thousands Of empty coal cars lying idle
in yards and banked upon sidings, the
presidents of these roads refuse to per-
nit the soft coal miners and operators
to ship their product The railroad pres
idents insist that their freight business
is now so great that they cannot afford
to haul coal and that it must wait until
a more propitious time.
$50 completely have they tied up the
coal cars that the soft coal operators
here have made a Joint appeal to Presi-
dent Cassatt, Of the Pennsylvania, to
treat them fairly and handle the usual
quantity of soft coal which they ship to
tidewater. New York has never been a
soft-coal market until this fall. All soft
coal coming to the Atlantic seaboard
has been for export purposes until the
famine IN hard coal made it necessary
to lse bitIrrinouS coal
"Bituminous coal operators hold the
railroad officials responsible for this con-
dition. They say they can mine sufficient
coal TO supply the entire market if the
railroads will only deliver it. While the
coal famine is on the Board of Health
will not enforce the laws against the
use of soft coal"
The price of oil has also advanced.
Tho American and Journal says:
''The Oil Trust owing to the increased
demand on account of the coal famine,
has increased prices one-half cent gal
Ion. The trust sells 45,50O0C0 barrels of
refined oil a year. This is 1.41o, 10000 gal
Ions. The increase in price adds s7.052,5o0
to the trusts annual profits. Most of this
will be paid by the poor. already victims
of the Meat and Coal Trusts. Another
increase in oil is promised
There is nothing more pathetic in the
life of the tenements of this city than
the appearance of their inhabitants in
these times of present hardship and
threatening famine. There is the grim
realization everywhere that coal as an
article to be purchased no longer exists
for them, and SO with a stocism almost
marvellous the children and the fathers
and mothers, yes, and even the grand
mothers. gather in every material that
will burn. From the rafters of disman-
tied houses, from old planking, from
boxes that sell at cents and 10 cents
each, from every imaginable source have
the dwellers Of the tenements collected
the fuel that is to keep their kitchen
fires going and protect them from the
winters blasts.
In a way the tenernent-house inhabi-
tant is farsighted. If there be the means
of warding off disaster, the means are
embraced; but it is, Notwithstanding, a
relentless fact that the wood which has
been gathered and will be gathered for
weeks and months can no more supply
the necessary heat for the thousands of
poor in this city than it's sale could off
set the impossible prices asked by the
! coal dealers.