And then the price. Consumers say that if
the price is not too high, the quality is too bad;
and some think that both accusations are tenable.
The companies are receiving larger dividends
than ever they did. They can afford either to
improve the quality or reduce the price. This
is partly due to the increased and increasing
value of the refuse. A ton of coal yields,
besides its ten thousand cubic feet or so of
gas, about a chaldron of coke, twelve gallons
of tar, and ten gallons of ammoniacal liquor.
The coke, as we all know, finds a ready market
at a good price. The tar yields naphtha, creosote,
patent fuel, paint for palings, pitch, paraffin,
and the exquisite colours belonging to the
magenta and mauve and solferino family. The
ammoniacal liquor yields sal-ammoniac and
carbonate of ammonia. A complete revolution
has taken place in these matters. Times
were when gas companies begged and prayed
other people to come and take the refuse
(except the coke); but nobody would, and
rivers were contaminated with stinking tar and
ammonia. All this is now changed; all the
refuse is eagerly bought, and good prices are
paid for it.

In order to see whether the price of gas has
varied in any uniform way with the price of
coal, the House of Commons has ordered a
return to be prepared by all the metropolitan
companies, and many of the provincial; and
this return has just been printed. All the
companies tell a similar tale; the price of gas
has not varied nearly so much as the price of coal.
The yearly averages, for the last fourteen years,
of the eighteen companies which supply the
metropolis with gas, show that the price of gas
has varied from three shillings and ninepence
to six shillings per thousand cubic feet; whereas
the coal average has varied from twelve shillings
to twenty-five shillings per ton. Either the
dear coal years must be very bad, or the cheap
coal years very good, for the gas companies;
the dividends, duly set forth in the return just
printed, show that the latter is the case;
dividends have been very much larger since the
passing of the Gas Act, five years ago, than
they were before. The Boghead cannel (a grey
earthy substance that looks very little like coal,
but is especially rich in gas-making bitumen,
and concerning which a very costly series of
lawsuits took place a few years ago) has in
some years been as high as fifty-three shillings
per ton; only a small per-centage, however, of
this costly coal is used. In the country districts,
the cheapest gas noticed in the return—in the
cheapest years and the cheapest towns—is two
and sixpence per thousand feet at Newcastle,
and two and ninepence at Cardiff; while the
highest is ten shillings at Inverness, and ten
and tenpence at Sligo. These sums are
significant, showing how powerfully the price of
gas is influenced by the relative distances of
coal supply. Newcastle and Cardiff are in the
midst of the coal districts; Inverness and Sligo
are far removed from them. The Inverness
Gasworks had to pay about four times as much
per ton for coal as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, before
the highland railways were open.

All things considered, we gas-enlightened
people have certainly a right to ask that the
gas shall be better and cheaper than it is.
'Twould be no answer to say that gas was
seven shillings per thousand feet twenty years
ago, ten shillings thirty years ago, and fifteen
shillings thirty-six years ago, and that it is
now only four and sixpence. We have to
look to the extent of the demand, the
improvement in the manufacturing processes, and
the great value of the refuse; and the public
ought to have a little of this benefit as
well as the shareholders in the companies.
Eighteen companies, one to each district, supply
us with something like ten thousand million
cubic feet of gas annually. It is a grand feat,
certainly; and we owe much to the companies
for the indomitable perseverance with which
they have mastered all the difficulties; but as
the time of handsome dividends (ten per cent
and more) has arrived, we say in all frankness
and no unkindness to the companies—give us a
little more light for our money!

A HERO MISUNDERSTOOD.

WHENEVER, in our estimate of public men,
we have lapsed into serious error, the only fair
and honourable course is to embrace the first
opportunity open to us of recanting, in a pub-
lic, unreserved manner, these misapprehensions
into which we have been unfortunately
betrayed.

Timour the Tartar—so called, because, of all
Tartars of his time, he was decidedly the most
tartaresque—has ceased, for a considerable time,
to exercise any influence over the public counsels
of any quarter of the world. Rarely does his
name appear in any leading, political, or city
article, save, perhaps, as that of a representative
man, the personal embodiment of some governing
principle, for which the writer needs a
powerful illustration.

Justice is, sooner or later, meted out to every
true hero. In the case of Timour the Tartar, it
has required whole ages to dissipate the thick
veil of prejudice which gathered round his
name. It was, in fact, no later than
yesterevening that this cloud was finally dispersed,
and the character of the very remarkable man
in question permitted to shine forth in full
splendour.

A good many persons, both male and female
(and several horses richly caparisoned), were
engaged in rendering this tardy tribute to the
maligned potentate, and so earnest were all
parties in prosecuting their honourable purpose,
that, in the brief space of three-quarters of
an hour, the thing was effected, and, amid
thundering cheers, Timour the Tartar exalted to
that niche, among the brave and wise, hitherto
closed against him.

Among the many benefits accruing from the
British drama, is that of its causing us to