True tales from an austere kingdom (4)

There is no mob in the world so fearful as a London mob.

Such is the entry in my diary for the time of the coal price riots. Having seen more of the world since I wrote the above, I can only reconfirm the authority of these words.  

The events occurred during the grim period of austerity, or The Grims, as it was widely known. In spite of the high levels of poor seeking support, and apparent shortage of employment, there were still many ways for an astute businessman to make honest profit if he were sufficiently attune to the New Business Methods.

One such innovation was the getting together of all the coal suppliers to London, to agree a Universal Approach to Coal Pricing. The meeting, I recall, took place in an alehouse I occasionally frequented, in the centre of the City.

It being the first time the diverse coal merchants had all been in the same room, they each wanted to impress the other with their capacity for alcohol, mining being an industry where even the owners share the tendency towards boastfulness and alcoholic prowess. All talk of business was put on hold while fine wine flowed like ale and ale flowed like water.

At the end of the night, with the ten powerful, rich and influential men all reduced to gibbering drunken wrecks, one of the men, Sir Oswald Ferrish, suddenly remembered why they’d gathered together in the first place.

“Let’s just double the price of coal,” he said.

And so it was agreed, as of that industrious day the price of coal doubled from a penny a gunnel to two pence a gunnel.

Who, one might ask, being of sound mind, would oppose such a common sense notion as the right of a man to charge such fee for his wares as he wishes. Surely, you would think, people can simply make a choice: to buy the goods at that price or to not buy the goods. If the businessman has overvalued his chattels than he is the fool, but never the thief.

Such logic, however, was entirely lost on the rabble that populated London town.

Parliament became besieged with correspondence and petitions against the rise, there were rallies and speeches on every corner. There were riots on the streets, coal sellers were beaten coal-black for simply doing their jobs, coal cellars were looted by the thieving multitude and on every street, nay in nearly every house, stolen coal, illicit wood and plundered peat, burned. Many times the army had to be called out to restore the peace. The king once more retired to the countryside, lest the revolution spread to his back door.  Barely an honest sack of coal was sold in all that time.

Things became even worse for the coal merchants. It so happened that the price increase coincided with the introduction of Zero Wages contracts amongst the miners in their employ. This proved extraordinarily unpopular, the miners refused to work for no pay, preferring to pilfer instead of honest hard work and resulted in the theft of coal on a grand scale.

The coal merchants hired tousands of men  to police the coal tips, but as these were also hired on Zero Wages contracts they too started plundering and thus the initiative had the single effect of doubling the amount of coal stolen. The merchnants eventually had to pay the guards, until they realised that their bill for paying the guards was higher than that of paying the miners in the first place, so the union won out and wages were restored.

This industrial dispute increased the chaos caused by the coal price rise. Because of the miners’ strike there was no coal to be had by any gentleman in London, even at the New Price. Such coal as made it this far south was carefully controlled by the union men who stole it, and went straight to their companion thieves in the city, it being sold through such union and labour routes as were able to exist in spite of the crackdown on such bodies by City magistrates.

Indeed, the greatest irony was the site of the protest vigil against the rise outside the offices of one of the coal merchants. Inside, the poor businessmen and employees were shivering through want of coal and fire, yet the lazy thieves camping outside in protest were warmed by a great brazier around which they gathered, toasting their dinners and sweating with the heat of it.

It was a bleak period, and there is no doubt that God, watching down on events from his heavenly kingdom, thought ill of the rabble, for one night, as the brazier burnt brightly, a spark from the fire caught onto the building of the coal merchants. The crowd cheered with joy as they watched the building of their enemy burn, but the cheering eventually quit, as the fire spread to the next building and the next, and, in no time, the whole street was ablaze.

London was on fire.

Panic spread as the mob ran to their homes to save their families and their chattels, but in the chaos no effort was made to quell the flames. God supplied a wind to propel the flames and the fire spread, from building to building, from street to street.

It being the period of Government Efficiencies and Non-Essential Services having been cut, there was no fire service to serve London at that time. The army was asked to assist, but all troops were already being used to quell protests and by the time they were returned the fire had spread out of all control.

And so London burnt to the ground. Many thousands lost their lives and many more thousands of buildings were destroyed.

Surely, it was said by many in my club and elsewhere, this fire was no mere chance, no happenstance, as in happier times a million fires are lit in London every with no consequence bar warmth and hot food. Here, then, was a judgement by none other than God himself, a divine curse on the wretched rebels that held the city to ransom, and on all such that bought coal from these brigands.

The merits of such divine intervention could not be denied. Fire purged the town of the excess population that had given rise to this period of grim austerity.

From the ashes of the dead would rise a new, prosperous city.