The Law-making Houses are continually occupied (and occupied in vain) to find remedies for the almost universal crime of _Adulteration_ [Kon-ti-fyt] _of Food_. Scarcely an article of food, or of drink, medicine, what not, escapes this dangerous cheat. To make a larger gain some cheap admixture, often poisonous and rarely harmless, is added to nearly every article. It is not easy to understand how general the moral debasement must be, when a thing of this sort, striking at once at health, and even life, is so common as to be scarcely contemned! To be cheated is a kind of _comedy_--one expects to be cheated--cheated in his clothes, his wine, his horses, his dogs, his meat, his drink, his beer, his sugar, his tea, _his everything_! To have been honestly dealt with is a surprise--a thing to be remarked upon. To have been cheated--a _shrug_ of the shoulder--an exclamation--"Of course!" In fact, almost always the cause of a hearty laugh, especially if a sharp trick--or at another's expense! The very laws of trade are based on dishonesty; and a people will not generally be better than their laws. The High-Caste affecting to despise trade, do, occasionally, in the Law-making Houses (as I have said), feebly interfere with the general rascality. Yet, they are so dependent, indirectly or directly, upon trade or its gains, that they will not do anything to hamper it; and any law which touches the utmost freedom of action in _buying and selling_, in their opinion, has this effect. On the whole, they say, better a few rogues flourish, and a few people be poisoned to death, than that _commerce_ (an _euphuism_ for rascally traffic) be injured. That man has a fine nature which traffic, in its best ways, cannot tarnish; and laws should take their colour from the best--not the sordid. The old Romans cultivated the land, and looked with contempt upon traffic. When riches and its corruptions lowered manliness, and Commerce spread through the provinces--still, the Roman jurisprudence based itself upon equity--it did not place trade upon a pedestal above Justice! They made no such Barbarous mistake as to suppose that any business of a people could be more important to its prosperity, than the maintainance of right principle! The English Barbarians say the interests of the public require a disregard of right; and their famous legal maxim (in the Roman) is _Caveat emptor_--the buyer must take care--must sharply watch the seller. This is to say, "The seller is to be expected to cheat; and, if the buyer be cheated, let him thank his own stupidity!" The old Heathen Romans made no such immoral rule; they required the most exact good faith upon both sides. The seller could not sell a horse blind of one eye, or incurably, though not always visibly, lame, and to the complaint of the buyer answer, "Oh! I gave no assurance of soundness."