The further instances of trading-immorality which it seems desirable here to give, are those which carry with them a certain excuse: showing as they do how insensibly, and almost irresistibly, men are thrust into vicious practices. Always, no doubt, some utterly unconscientious trader is the first to introduce a new form of fraud. He is by-and-by followed by others who wear their moral codes but loosely. The more upright traders are continually tempted to adopt this questionable device which those around them are adopting. The greater the number who yield, and the more familiar the device becomes, the more difficult is it for the remainder to stand out against it. The pressure of competition upon them becomes more and more severe. They have to fight an unequal battle: debarred as they are from one of the sources of profit which their antagonists possess. And they are finally almost compelled to follow the lead of the rest. Take for example what has happened in the candle-trade. As all know, the commoner kinds of candles are sold in bunches, supposed to weigh a pound each. Originally, the nominal weight corresponded with the real weight. But at present the weight is habitually short by an amount varying from half an ounce to two ounces—is sometimes depreciated 12 1/2 per cent. If, now, an honest chandler offers to supply a retailer at, say, six shillings for the dozen pounds, the answer he receives is—“Oh, we get them for five-and-eightpence.” “But mine,” replies the chandler, “are of full weight; while those you buy at five-and-eightpence are not.” “What does that matter to me?” the retailer rejoins—“a pound of candles is a pound of candles: my customers buy them in the bunch, and won’t know the difference between yours and another’s.” And the honest chandler, being everywhere met with this argument, finds that he must either make his bunches of short weight, or give up business. Take another case, which, {129} like the last, we have direct from the mouth of one who has been obliged to succumb. It is that of a manufacturer of elastic webbing, now extensively used in making boots, etc. From a London house with which he dealt largely, this manufacturer recently received a sample of webbing produced by some one else, accompanied by the question, “Can you make us this at ——— per yard?” (naming a price below that at which he had before supplied them); and hinting that if he could not do so they must go elsewhere. On pulling to pieces the sample (which he showed to us), this manufacturer found that sundry of the threads which should have been of silk were of cotton. Indicating this fact to those who sent him the sample, he replied that, if he made a like substitution, he could furnish the fabric at the price named; and the result was that he eventually did thus furnish it. He saw that if he did not do so, he must lose a considerable share of his trade. He saw further, that if he did not at once yield, he would have to yield in the end; for that