[Footnote 1:  “Reddsmen” are the men who clear the way for the colliers.  They “redd up” the debris, and build up the roof (in the long wall system) as the colliery advances.]

At the same time that these two families of colliers were doing so well, it was very different with the majority of their fellow-workmen.  These only worked about three days in every week.  Some spent their earnings at the public-house; others took a whisky “ploy” at the seaside.  For that purpose they hired all the gigs, droskies, cabs, or “machines,” about a fortnight beforehand.  The results were seen, as the successive Monday mornings come round.  The magistrate sat in the neighbouring town, where a number of men and women, with black eyes and broken heads, were brought before him for judgment.  Before the time of high wages, the Court-house business was got through in an hour:  sometimes there was no business at all.  But when the wages were doubled, the magistrate could scarcely get through the business in a day.  It seemed as if high wages meant more idleness, more whisky, and more broken heads and faces.

These were doubtless “roaring times” for the colliers, who, had they possessed the requisite self-denial, might have made little fortunes.  Many of the men who worked out the coal remained idle three or four days in the week; while those who burnt the coal, were famished and frozen for want of it.  The working people who were not colliers, will long remember that period as the time of the coal famine.  While it lasted, Lord Elcho went over to Tranent—­a village in East Lothian—­to address the colliers upon their thriftlessness, their idleness, and their attempted combinations to keep up the price of coal.

He had the moral courage—­a quality much wanted in these days—­to tell his constituents some hard but honest truths.  He argued with them about the coal famine, and their desire to prolong it.  They were working three days a week, and idling the other days.  Some of them did not do a stroke of work during a week or a fortnight; others were taking about a hundred Bank holidays yearly.  But what were they doing with the money they earned?  Were they saving it for a rainy day; or, when the “roaring times” no longer existed, were they preparing to fall back upon the poor-rates?  He found that in one case a man, with his two sons, was earning seven pounds in a fortnight.  “I should like,” he said, “to see those Scotchmen who are in the mining business taking advantage of these happy times, and endeavouring by their industry to rise from their present position—­to exercise self-help, to acquire property, and possibly to become coal masters themselves.”