simple and honest, and during the first few purchases to exhibit his honesty by pointing out defects in the things he was selling; and then, having gained the customer's confidence, he proceeded to pass off upon him inferior goods at superior prices.

These are a few out of the various manoeuvres in con. stant practice. Of course there is a running accompani ment of falsehoods, uttered as well as acted. It is expected of the assistant that he will say whatever is needed to effect a sale. "Any fool can sell what is wanted," said a master in reproaching a shopman for not having persuaded a customer to buy something quite unlike that which he asked for. And the unscrupulous mendacity thus required by employers, and encouraged by example, grows to a height of depravity that has been described to us in words too strong to be repeated. Our informant was obliged to relinquish his position in one of these establishments, because he could not lower himself to the required depth of degradation. "You don't lie as though you believe what you say," observed one of his fellowassistants. And this was uttered as a reproach!

As those subordinates who have fewest qualms of conscience are those who succeed the best, are soonest promoted to more remunerative posts, and have therefore the greatest chances of establishing businesses of their own; it may be inferred that the morality of the heads of these establishments, is much on a par with that of their em ployés. The habitual mal-practices of wholesale-houses, confirm this inference. Not only, as we have just seen, are assistants under a pressure impelling them to deceive purchasers respecting the qualities of the goods they buy, but purchasers are also deceived in respect to the quanti ties; and that, not by an occasional unauthorized trick, but by an organized system, for which the firm itself is responsible. The general, and indeed almost universal

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practice, is, to make up goods, or to have them made up, in lengths that are shorter than they profess to be. A piece of calico nominally thirty-six yards long, never meas ures more than thirty-one yards-is understood throughout the trade to measure only this. And the long-accumu lating delinquencies which this custom indicates the suc cessive diminutions of length, each introduced by some adept in dishonesty, and then imitated by his competitors -are now being daily carried to a still greater extent, wherever they are not likely to be immediately detected. Articles that are sold in small bundles, knots, packets, or such forms as negative measurement at the time of sale, are habitually deficient in quantity. Silk-laces called six quarters, or fifty-four inches, really measure four quarters, or thirty-six inches. Tapes were originally sold in grosses containing twelve knots of twelve yards each; but these twelve-yard knots are now cut of all lengths, from eight yards down to five yards, and even less-the usual length being six yards. That is to say, the 144 yards which the gross once contained, has now in some cases dwindled down to 60 yards. In widths, as well as in lengths, this deception is practised. French cotton-braid, for instance (French only in name), is made of different widths; which are respectively marked 5, 7, 9, 11, etc.: each figure indicating the number of threads of cotton which the width includes, or rather should include, but does not. For those which should be marked 5 are marked 7; and those which should be marked 7 are marked 9: out of three samples from different houses shown to us by our inform ant, only one contained the alleged number of threads. Fringe, again, which is sold wrapped on card, will often be found two inches wide at the end exposed to view, but will diminish to one inch at the end next the card; or per haps the first twenty yards will be good, and all the rest, hidden under it, will be bad. These frauds are committed

unblushingly, and as a matter of business. We have our selves read in an agent's order-book, the details of an order, specifying the actual lengths of which the articles were to be cut, and the much greater lengths to be marked on the labels. And we have been told by a manufacturer who was required to make up tapes into lengths of fifteen yards, and label them as "warranted 18 yards," that when he did not label them falsely, his goods were sent back to him; and that the greatest concession he could obtain, was to be allowed to send them without labels.

It is not to be supposed that in their dealings with manufacturers, these wholesale-houses adopt a code of morals differing much from that which regulates their dealings with retailers. The facts prove it to be much the same. A buyer for instance (who exclusively conducts the purchases of a wholesale-house from manufacturers) will not unfrequently take from a first-class maker a small supply of some new fabric, on the pattern of which much time and money have been spent; and this new-pattern fabric he will put into the hands of another maker, to have copied in large quantities. Some buyers, again, give their orders verbally, that they may have the opportunity of afterwards repudiating them if they wish; and in a case narrated to us, where a manufacturer who had been thus deluded, wished on a subsequent occasion to guarantee himself by obtaining the buyer's signature to his order, he was refused it.

For other unjust acts of wholesale-houses, the heads of these establishments are, we presume, responsible. Small manufacturers working with insufficient capital, and in times of depression not having the wherewith to meet their engagements, are often obliged to become depend ants on the wholesale-houses with which they deal; and are then cruelly taken advantage of. One who has thus

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committed himself, has either to sell his accumulated stock at a great sacrifice-thirty to forty per cent. below its value or else to mortgage it; and when the wholesalehouse becomes the mortgagee, the manufacturer has little chance of escape. He is obliged to work at the wholesaler's terras; and ruin almost certainly follows. This is especially the case in the silk-hoisery business. As was said to us by one of the rger silk-hosiers, who had watched the destruction of many of his smaller brethren -"They may be spared for a while as a cat spares a mouse; but they are sure to be eaten up in the end." And we can the more readily credit this statement, from having found that a like policy is pursued by some provincial curriers in their dealings with small shoe-makers; and also by hop-merchants and maltsters in their dealings with small publicans. We read that in Hindostan, the ryots, when crops fall short, borrow from the Jews to buy seed; and once in their clutches are doomed. It seems that our commercial world can furnish parallels.

Of another class of wholesale-traders-those who supply grocers with foreign and colonial produce—we may say that though, in consequence of the nature of their business, their mal-practices are less numerous and multi form, as well as less glaring, they are of much the same stamp as the foregoing. Unless it is to be supposed that sugar and spices are moral antiseptics as well as physical ones, it must be expected that wholesale dealers in them will transgress much as other wholesale dealers do, in those directions where the facilities are greatest. And the truth is, that both in the qualities and quantities of the articles they sell, they take advantage of the retailers. The descriptions they give of their commodities are habitually misrepresentations. Samples sent round to their customers are characterized as first-rate when they arc really second-rate. The travellers are expected to en

dorse these untrue statements. And unless the groce has adequate keenness and extensive knowledge, he is more or less deceived. In some cases, indeed, no skill will save him. There are frauds that have grown up little by little into customs of the trade, which the retailer must submit to. In the purchase of sugar, for example, he is imposed on in respect alike of the goodness and the weight.

The history of the dishonesty is this: Originally the tare allowed by the merchant on each hogshead, was 14 per cent. of the gross weight. The actual weight of the wood of which the hogshead was made, was at that time about 12 per cent. of the gross weight. And thus the trade allowance left a profit of 2 per cent. to the buyer. Gradually, however, the hogshead has grown thicker and heavier; until now, instead of amounting to 12 per cent. of the gross weight, it amounts to 17 per cent. And as the allowance of 14 per cent. still continues, the result is that the retail grocer loses 3 per cent.: to the extent of 3 per cent. he buys wood in the place of sugar. In the quality of the sugar, he is deluded by the practice of giving him a sample only from the best part of the hogshead. During its voyage from Jamaica or elsewhere, the contents of a hogshead undergo a certain slow draining. The molasses, of which more or less is always present, filters from the uppermost part of the mass of sugar to the lowermost part; and this lowermost part, technically known as the "foot," is of darker colour and smaller value. The quan tity of it contained in a hogshead, varies greatly; and the retailer, receiving a false sample, has to guess what the quantity of "foot" may be; and to his cost often under estimates it. As will be seen from the following letter, copied from the Public Ledger for the 20th Oct., 1858, these grievances, more severe even than we have repre sented them, are now exciting an agitation: