Railway and Navigation Company, who have kept the prices in San Francisco just below the point at which it becomes profitable to import Australian coal. Other railways are now preparing to reach the coal fields, but can we doubt that the competition to which the coal consumers are looking with eager anticipation will prove evanescent? Returning to the East, we find the coal mines of northern Illinois all held by a single company, which has full control of the traffic; while the mines of southern Illinois, on which the St. Louis consumers depend, are united as the Consolidated Coal Company. This latter corporation has "wrecked" many of its mines for the purpose of limiting the supply and raising the price; and has bought many mines of competing companies and closed them for the same purpose. The Attorney-General of Illinois has been requested to bring suit against this "trust" for the forfeiture of its charter.
In the Hocking Valley coal fields in Ohio, the Columbus, Hocking Valley and Toledo Railway Company owns 10,000 acres of coal lands, and mined, in 1887, 1,870,416 tons of coal. The coal in western Virginia is coming into