The thrown and dyed silk passes into the hands of the weaver; and here again we come upon dishonesties. Manufacturers of figured silks sin against their fellows by stealing their patterns. The laws which have been found necessary to prevent this species of piracy, show that it has been carried to a great extent. Even now it is not prevented. One who has himself suffered from it, tells us that manufacturers still get one another’s designs by bribing the workmen. In their dealings with “buyers,” too, some manufacturers resort to deceptions: perhaps tempted to do so by the desire to compensate themselves for the heavy tax paid in treating, etc. Goods which have already been seen {127} and declined by other buyers, are brought before a subsequent one with artfully-devised appearances of secrecy, accompanied by professions that these goods have been specially reserved for his inspection: a manœuvre by which an unwary man is sometimes betrayed. That the process of production has its delusions, scarcely needs saying. In the ribbon-trade, for example, there is a practice called “top-ending;” that is, making the first three yards good, and the rest (which is covered when rolled up) of bad or loose texture—80 “shutes” to the inch instead of 108. And then there comes the issuing of imitations made of inferior materials—textile adulterations as we may call them. This practice of debasement, not an occasional but an established one, is carried to a surprising extent, and with surprising rapidity. Some new fabric, first sold at 7_s._ 6_d._ per yard, is supplanted by successive counterfeits; until at the end of eighteen months a semblance of it is selling at 4_s._ 3_d._ per yard. Nay, still greater depreciations of quality and price take place—from 10_s._ down to 3_s._, and even 2_s._ per yard. Until at length the badness of these spurious fabrics becomes so conspicuous, that they are unsaleable; and there ensues a reaction, ending either in the reintroduction of the original fabric, or in the production of some novelty to supply its place. * * * * * Among our notes of malpractices in trade, retail, wholesale, and manufacturing, we have many others that must be passed over. We cannot here enlarge on the not uncommon trick of using false trade-marks; or of imitating another maker’s wrappers. We must be satisfied with simply referring to the doings of apparently-reputable houses, which purchase goods known to be dishonestly obtained. And we are obliged to refrain from particularizing certain established arrangements, existing under cover of the highest respectability, which seem intended to facilitate these nefarious transactions. The frauds we have detailed {128} are but samples of a state of things which it would take a volume to describe in full.