There is often hostility on the part of producers against traders, as though the man who raises the corn were necessarily more honorable than the grain dealer, who pours it into his mammoth bin. There ought to be no such hostility. The occupation of one is as necessary as that of the other. Yet producers often think it no wrong to snatch away from the trader; and they say to the bargain-maker, "You get your money easy." Do they get it easy? Let those who in the quiet field and barn get their living exchange places with those who stand to-day amid the excitements of commercial life, and see if they find it so very easy. While the farmer goes to sleep with the assurance that his corn and barley will be growing all the night, moment by moment adding to his revenue, the merchant tries to go to sleep, conscious that that moment his cargo may be broken on the rocks, or damaged by the wave that sweeps clear across the hurricane deck; or that the gold gamblers may, that very hour, be plotting some monetary revolution, or the burglars be prying open his safe, or his debtors fleeing the town, or his landlord raising the rent, or the fires kindling on the block that contains all his estate. _Easy!_ is it? God help the merchants! It is hard to have the palms of the hand blistered with out-door work; but a more dreadful process when, through mercantile anxieties, the brain is consumed! In the next place we notice _mercantile_ lies, those before the counter and behind the counter. I will not attempt to specify the different forms of commercial falsehood. There are merchants who excuse themselves for deviation from truthfulness because of what they call commercial custom. In other words, the multiplication and universality of a sin turns it into a virtue. There have been large fortunes gathered where there was not one drop of unrequited toil in the wine; not one spark of bad temper flashing from the bronze bracket; not one drop of needle-woman's heart-blood in the crimson plush; while there are other great establishments in which there is not one door-knob, not one brick, not one trinket, not one thread of lace, but has upon it the mark of dishonor. What wonder if, some day, a hand of toil that had been wrung, and worn out, and blistered until the skin came off, should be placed against the elegant wall-paper, leaving its mark of blood,--four fingers and a thumb; or that, some day, walking the halls, there should be a voice accosting the occupant, saying, _Six cents for making a shirt_; and, flying the room, another voice should say, _Twelve cents for an army blanket_; and the man should try to sleep at night, but ever and anon be aroused, until, getting up on one elbow, he should shriek out, _Who's there?_