I must confess that at the time I had my doubts as to this being sound law, but after the declaration of the President of the Board of Trade, I am bound to admit the possibility of my being mistaken. “Competition is the soul of commerce;” competition is the parent of adulteration; adulteration is theft as a rule,—murder as an exception. The loaf that is composed of inferior flour, rice, potatoes, and alum, is the “wheaten bread” of “commerce.” The poisonous liquid composed of a little malt and hops, eked out with treacle and _coculus indicus_, is the beer of “commerce.” And, according to the same ruling, a lump of lard stuck under the butter-shop scale, or the inch snipped off the draper’s yard, or the false bottom to the publican’s pot, constitute the weights and measures of “commerce.” All these little harmless tricks of trade are, it seems, within the scope of a tradesman’s “private business,” and according to the President of the Board of Trade, if a tradesman in pursuit of his private business is to be watched and spied over for the malicious purpose of bringing him within the grasp of the law, why the sooner he quits the country, and settles amongst a more easy-going people, with elbow-room proper for his commercial enterprise, the better for him. Undoubtedly, the better for him and the better for us. I would make this difference, however. When his iniquity was discovered, he should not go altogether unrewarded for his past services. He should be assisted in his going abroad. He should not be called on to pay one penny for his outward passage, and, what is more, he should be supplied with substantial linsey-wolsey clothing, and his head should be cropped quite close, so that the scorching sun of Bermuda or Gibraltar might not upset his brain for future commercial speculation.