Another system from which unscrupulous employers derived some income, more trifling in amount than the annoyance and irritation it produced, was that known as ‘Fines.’ In remote collieries, fines were of regular occurrence under one pretext or another. It is quite likely that the system was a survival of feudal jurisdiction exercised by the superior all over the country, and finally put an end to, as it was supposed, by Act of Parliament passed in 1747. Instead of the workman being brought before a magistrate for an alleged offence, a court-martial was held upon him by the employer or manager, and a fine was usually exacted. It mattered not whether the offence related to the man’s employment or to his conduct with his neighbours, whether it had a criminal or only a civil origin—the court-martial was held, and the result invariably the same—a fine. The curious thing was that these fines were taken as a matter of course, the decisions being usually respected after a little necessary grumbling. The amount of money gained annually from these fines was not large, so that their justification must have been that this was the only available method of keeping law and order. In this view, ‘fines’ may have suited an earlier state of civilisation; but the system is too rough and ready to be consonant with modern ideas of justice. The miner has suffered under slavery, and its twin-brother the bond system; but he has seen these totally disappear, not, however, very many years before slavery was abolished amongst the aborigines of our colonies. Truck or the tally system has also become a thing of the past, though we have seen how hard it was to kill. Fines likewise have given place to the ordinary operation of the law; and the exaction of poundage is now only made by a small residuum of coal-masters, on whom the action of public opinion is slow and uncertain; but the system is doomed, and must, sooner or later, follow the other abuses we have enumerated.