New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-12-30

this unloaded coal and is planning
steps to put an end 70 this nuisance.
The labor problem comes TO the front
here. At the time of the last snow
storm hundreds OF men were hired
away from the coal companies to shovel
snow off the streets. The coal supply
was thus reduced in order to move
snow.
Now for the distribution factor. It
is a twentieth century absurdity. II
takes fifty retailers, 5000 peders.
thousands of coal cellars and alto
gether 10000 persons to give New York
$4,000 tons of coal day. One hundred
thousand people make a living from
selling and delivering $4,000 tons.
Somebody must support them and the
consumer is somebody. A vast super.
fluffy Of persons and effort. That is
one reason why anthracite coal tha.
costs SO or 81 at the mines BY govern
ment regulation is costing some Of the
poor people of New York as high as
$40 d ton.
The whole system of distribution is
wrong, archaic, wasteful, complex and
easily broken down in time of stress.
New York has no room to store ample
coal reserves If it had them. There
are no big yards either here or on the
New Jersey mainland, except those Of
the public service companies and some
large manufacturing concerns. The
large buildings have limited coal eel =
lars. The big hotels can hardly go a
day without receiving coal. Many
apartment houses are similarly stu
ated.
OF the 10000 tons the metropolis
daily consumes the three thousand tons
that go TO the cold water tenements"
that is TO say. roughly, to the very
poor-present the chief problem of dis
tributiOn. They have no storage but
pals, boxes and the bathtubs. They
cannot buy coal in the months OF lower
prices. They are forced to the utter
most extremity OF costly and atten-
uated distribution.
The coal pedler buys coal from the
retailer at a fair price. That is fixed
by the fuel administration and may
not be higher than 80 per cent more
than the 1915 retail price. or even so
high if such figure exceeds the price
Of July. 1917. II is not an invariable
price, as different dealers have always
mad different prices 10 some extent
and the law has forbidden the fixing OF
uniform prices by agreement. But in
no case is 10 an excessive price to-day.
None but the very poor buy through
the pedlers and the cellars. and so
none but the same very poor pay al
excessive price. The wealthy and
well-to-do get their coal cheap; the
poor pay dearly The pedlers are the
curse OF the obsolete system. They
are graspirg and svarieious as a class.
They take a big profit from tie cellar
man-the petty neighbOrhood dealer
who keeps a few tons Of stove coal in
a tenement house cellar. Then the
cellar man must have a profit. some
times big one. for delivering coal ub
all kinds of stairs and into all sorts Of
receptac!es. In the present time the
cellar man rarely gets more than a ton
or two Of coal az time. On cold days
he never has enough to go around. The
early customers get what he has and
the later ones 20 without.
Poor people are going without coal.
Some OF them can't afford TO pay the
price and some of them can't get il al
any price. They have had 20 pay as
nigh as Sl.20 for hundred pounds of
inferior coal. Only the costly use OF
gas IN ordinary burners or cooking
stoves-and sometimes in heaters
keeps the temperature above freezing
in many hsbitations.
Outside the poorer classes there is
at least discomfort all over New York.
Apartment houses, though with central
heating systems, are not heated at all