While at Petroseny, I heard great complaints against the Government for selling coal at such a low price that they must actually work at a loss.  The Kronstaeder Verein say they are prevented in this way from making their fair profits, as they are obliged to sell down to the others.  It would appear to be a suicidal policy for the pockets of the tax-payers to be mulcted for the sake of securing a prospective monopoly and the ruin of a private enterprise.  As it stands it is a pretty quarrel.

Writing in 1862, Professor Ansted says:  “The coal of Hungary is of almost all geological ages, and though none is first-rate in point of quality, a large proportion is excellent fuel.  The coals most valued at the present moment in Hungary are those of the Secondary and not of the Palaeozoic period.  But the great body of coal is very much newer; it is Tertiary, and till lately was regarded as of comparatively modern date.  In the Ysil Valley there is a splendid deposit of true coal."[14] Since the time when the above was written the resources of the Ysil or Sil Valley—­viz., Petroseny—­have been abundantly developed, as we see, and it has been pronounced to be “one of the finest coal mines in Europe.”  One of the seams of coal is ninety feet in thickness; but up to the present time it has been found impossible to make it into coke.

The miners at Petroseny are great offenders in regard to the abominable practice of killing fish by means of dynamite.  It is very well to say that the law forbids it; but the administrators of the law are not always a terror to evil-doers, and perhaps the timely present of a dish of fine trout does not sharpen the energies of the officials.  Another mode of destroying fish is practised by the Wallacks.  There grows in this locality a poisonous plant, of which they make a decoction and throw it into the river, thereby killing great numbers of fish at a time.

While driving round Petroseny I had an opportunity of seeing the Hungarian manner of making roads.  The peasants have to work on the roads a certain number of days in the year, and if they possess a pair of oxen, these must also be brought for a specified time.  An inspector is supposed to watch over them.  One afternoon we came upon a score of peasants, men and women, who were engaged in mending a bridge.  Their proceedings were just an instance of how “not to do a thing.”  They were placing trees across the gap, and the interstices they were filling up with leafy branches, over which was thrown a quantity of loose earth and stones well patted down to give the appearance of a substantial and even surface.  Of course the first rain would wash away the earth and leave as nice a hole as you could wish your enemy to put his foot into.  For all purposes of traffic the bridge was safer with the honest gap yawning in the traveller’s face.

It is said that the magistrates make matters easy and convenient for the peasants, if the latter, by being let off public work, attend gratuitously to the more pressing wants of the individual magistrate.