I could, were it necessary, multiply experiences similar to the above, but they would only serve to prove, what I have already made apparent, that the worries and sufferings of the very poor are greatly aggravated by their inability to procure a reasonable supply of coal. Slate-clubs, men's meetings, and brotherhoods have of late years done much to secure artisans and working men who are earning decent wages a supply of good coal all the year round. Weekly payments of one shilling and upwards enable them to lay in a store when coal is cheap--if it is ever cheap--or to have an arrangement with the coal merchant for the delivery of a specified amount every week. People possessed of commodious coal-cellars may buy largely when coal prices are at their lowest; but the poor--the very poor--can neither buy nor store, for they have neither storehouses nor barns. Even if they could, by the exercise of great self-denial, manage to pay a sum of sixpence per week into a local coal-club, they have nowhere to put the supply when sent home to them. They must needs buy in very small quantities only. The advantages of co-operation are not for them, but are reserved for those that are better off. One scriptural injunction, at any rate, the community holds with grim tenacity: "To him that hath it shall be given." Yet I have seen attempts at co-operation among the poorest, for one Christmas-time, when the weather was terribly severe, and when, as becomes a Christian country, the one great necessity of life among the poor was put up to a fabulous price, I knew four families living in one house to contribute threepence per family wherewith to purchase fifty-six pounds of coal that they might have extra fire at that happy season. Some of the very poor buy pennyworths of coke to mix with their coal, but though coke seems cheaper, it only flatters to deceive, for it demands greater draught, and it must be consumed in larger quantities. If for economy's sake a good draught and a generous supply be denied, it sullenly refuses to burn at all, and gives off fumes that might almost challenge those of a motor-car. The lives of many young children have been sacrificed by attempts to burn coke in small rooms where the draught necessary for good combustion has not existed. Certainly coke is no friend to the very poor. There are still meaner purchases of firing material than pennyworths of coal or pennyworths of coke, for halfpennyworths of cinders are by no means uncommon. A widow of my acquaintance who had several young children startled me one day when I was in her room by calling out, "Johnny, take the bucket and run for a ha'porth of cinders and a farthing bundle of wood." The farthing bundle of firewood I knew of old--and a fraudulent fellow I knew him to be, made up especially for widows and the unthrifty poor--but the halfpennyworth of cinders was a new item to me. I felt interested, and decided to remain till Johnny returned. He was not long away, for it was