Yorkshire Almanac William Lindley of Dodworth recalls how charcoal burners would cheat coal merchants at the time of the Restoration

5 May 1732: William Lindley of Dodworth recalls how charcoal burners would cheat coal merchants at the time of the Restoration

John Hobson. 1877. The Journal of Mr. John Hobson, Late of Dodworth Green. Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ed. Charles Jackson. Durham: Surtees Society. A (morbid) compendium of everyday England. It is sometimes unclear whether the date given is that of an occurrence or that on which news reached his capacious ears. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

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William Lindly, of this town, now basket-maker, aged near 90, says that he was bound apprentice to a banister maker, which was a large sort of hamper, then in use, for the carrying charcoal to the furnaces on horse-back, one on each side of the horse. They were made with a bottom to pull out, for the convenience of emptying. They were wide at the top, narrow in the bottom, which gave the colliers an opportunity of cheating, by filling them hollow, so they were left off, and sacks used in their stead: this was in the year 1660.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.