Brantwood, April 2, 1873. It is a bright morning, the first entirely clear one I have seen for months; such, indeed, as one used to see, before England was civilized into a blacksmith's shop, often enough in the sweet spring-time; and as, perhaps, our children's children may see often enough again, when their coals are burnt out, and they begin to understand that coals are not the source of all power Divine and human. In the meantime as I say, it is months since I saw the sky, except through smoke, or the strange darkness brought by blighting wind (viii. 3), and if such weather as this is to last, I shall begin to congratulate myself, as the 'Daily News' does its readers, on the "exceptionally high price of coal," indicating a most satisfactory state of things, it appears, for the general wealth of the country, for, says that well-informed journal, on March 3rd, 1873, "The net result of the exceptionally high price of coal is in substance this, that the coal owners and workers obtain an unusually large share in the distribution of the gross produce of the community, and the real capital of the community is increased!" This great and beautiful principle must of course apply to a rise in price in all other articles, as well as in coals. Accordingly, whenever you see the announcement in any shops, or by any advertising firm, that you can get something there cheaper than usual, remember, the capital of the community is being diminished; and whenever you have reason to think that anybody has charged you threepence for a twopenny article, remember that, according to the 'Daily News,' "the real capital of the community is increased." And as I believe you may be generally certain, in the present state of trade, of being charged even as much as twenty-seven pence for a twopenny article, the capital of the community must be increasing very fast indeed. Holding these enlightened views on the subject of the prices of things, the 'Daily News' cannot be expected to stoop to any consideration of their uses. But there is another "net result" of the high price of coal, besides the increase of the capital of the community, and a result which is more immediately your affair, namely, that a good many of you will die of cold. It may console you to reflect that a great many rich people will at least feel chilly, in economical drawing-rooms of state, and in ill-aired houses, rawly built on raw ground, and already mouldy for want of fires, though under a blackened sky. What a pestilence of them, and unseemly plague of builders' work--as if the bricks of Egypt had multiplied like its lice, and alighted like its locusts--has fallen on the suburbs of loathsome London!