 The history of the workers, long and bitter struggle for a decent standard of living, has been marked, now and then, by acts of overt violence. But there is only one case on record where such acts were committed without the knowledge or the conscious will of the workers involved, where their anger itself seemed to become an invisible force of destruction. The Remarkable Affair began on the 15th of September, 1921. It was on that day that Mrs. Courtney was going about her customary domestic chores. When suddenly, without warning, an investigation into the cause of the explosion was conducted. And after a very thorough inquiry, the official in charge issued a rather startling statement. There can be no question as to what caused the explosion. It occurred in a grate in the Courtney living room, and in that grate, there was absolutely nothing but coal. In short, it was the coal itself which exploded. During the remainder of 1921, reports of mysterious explosions came from various parts of England, from France, even from Belgium and Switzerland. The climax came on the 1st of January, 1923, when no less than six homes in Paris were reduced to ruins. The coal, which appears to have been responsible, has been extracted from British mines. British miners have been intensely agitated over what they believe to be an unjust reduction in their wages. But the conclusion which the official which the public to draw was unmistakable. It was the miners themselves who had inserted dynamite, or some other explosive substance, into the coal before it was distributed. We're agitated all right as the gentleman puts it, and we've got a right to be. And we're going to win a living wage for ourselves and our families. But we won't do it by taking the lives of innocent people. And we challenge these nibs to find warrants of dynamite in any lump of coal that's been mined in England. The explosions continued. And deep in when they were not of serious proportions, they were accompanied by examples of extraordinary behavior of the coal itself. There was, for instance, the report of the police inspector who visited the home of Mr. T. S. Frost. He summoned me to his house as Mr. Frost did. He pointed to a bucket of coal. I looked in, and the coal was exploding right there in the bucket. And all the while, little lumps are jumping out all around us and flying right through the walls of the room without leaving no mark behind. Nor was the police inspector the only one who bore witness to these astounding events. There was the Reverend A. L. Gardner, vicar of St. Gabriel's. And there were all the townspeople who assembled at a public meeting to discuss the mysterious affair. None of them could explain it. Indeed, the only adequate explanation for the whole sequence of explosions was one offered at the time by a certain unidentified miner. We never put no dawn of march in the coal, but don't forget they've been cutting our wages and we've been starving. And we're angry men. An anger at self is dynamite. It is to sigh that our anger ain't strong enough to transmit itself, so to speak, into a lump of coal. That the emotions of the oppressed and the underprivileged could be communicated to an inanimate object. This is beyond belief. And because it is beyond belief, the story of the exploding coal remains to this day incredible but true.