The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-26 00:00:00

ABUSES TN TRADE.

[THIS ARTICLE CONCLUDES wiz swim.]
The attention of the public has been, in
the articles under this head, called hither-
to more particularly to the frauds prac-
tised in the sale and imitation of manufac-
tured goods, because our manufactures from
the greater part of our exports and home trade,
afford the most extensive employment for the
population of the country, and are more exposed
to the rivalry of foreign nations. The silk, the
woollen, the linen, and the cotton trades, engage
here and in the sister kingdom not merely thou-
sands but millions of hands ; and nothing can
be of more importance to the interests of this
great community than the endeavour to reach
the highest pitch of excellence in each of those
fertile branches of trade. To expose the base
practices which undermine the growth of that de-
sirable superiority—to hold up to the abhorrence
of all honest men the system which inevitably
tends to depreciate the quality of the labour of
our population, and to deprive the manufacturer
and the workman, as well as the fair trader, of
an adequate profit upon their industry, therefore
became an imperative duty. The object of our
communication, it is now evident, is attainable.
The market has already sensibly felt the natural
effect of the exposure of a stupendous moral
and commercial evil ; the- public are aware of the
delusion, but still the difficult task remains, of
exciting the high aristocracy of the country to
the virtuous act of discouraging all attempts upon
the life of trade, of quelling the despicable pro-
pensity amongst those who are rolling in riches
to undervalue honest labour, and cry up the spu-
rious commodities of every fraudulent dealer.
The various degrees of quality in the raw ma-
terial of our manufactures have been already no-
ticed ; those in wool, for instance, from 10d. to
10s. ; and in silks, from 10s. to 255.; but in
many goods there is a mixture of fine and coarse
materials, the former of which can be thrown
upon the surface with astonishing effect, by the
hand of art, which is here unlimited in its ope-
rations. In silk or linen damask, in wolleen
cloths, the better material is protruded with such
exquisite skill, that the most accurate judges
who have served an apprenticeship to trade have
been baffled in their criticism by the deception.
It is only necessary to look at the right and the
wrong sides of those articles, to be convinced of
the facility with which an appearance can be
communicated. If this, then, be the case with

respect to goods made of the same kind of ma-
tt
jeor:
ta ,bley i tphrahcot
iws
emd ui hn
a ritni
colrees e 17
we
hicht h ew
woollcep-
en,
cotton, silk, and linen are combined. In silk
and woollen, for instance, one article can be
made in exact resemblance to another, and in
the one there shall be one-third less of silk than
in the other. It is just the same iu the other
mixtures, so that the shopkeeper himself, with all
his penetration, is obliged to rely, in a great mea-
sure, upon the manufacturer, whom he holds re-
sponsible for the sterling quality of the goods; and
the customer must equally rely upon the shop-
keeper, or submit to the ahnosi positive certainty of
being defrauded. Here is the chain of respon-
sibility by which excellence is attained and pre-
served, the bond by which the interests of the
great mass of the people are incorporated and
protected ; but if every man who invents a new
pattern or article of any excellence must be pil-
fered of his invention ; if base imitations be
thrown upon the town, and the public run mad
after " bargains," nothing but villainy and fraud
cam prosper in the public streets; the fair trades-
man must either become a convert to the opi-
nions and habits of the knave, or sink into ob-
scurity d ai;ldthiwgaonotd;so thefr high
in foreign markets by British goods must drop
into insignificante, our own markets must be
livhhicielhialorapetieirrenhiaasienrtsaiwneildl
appear, and our population must have to en-
counter still greater excesses of wretchedness than
those which have been already visited upon all
the ranks of industry.

The impudence of the fellows who foist their
trash upon the public is beyond all endurance.
It is but a few days ago that one of them sent
about handbills, stating, that he would peremp-
torily sell 500 town-prints, at half-a-crown a
yard, which could not be purchased at any other
shop for less than four shillings. A gentleman
connected with the town-print trade, had the cu-
riosity to look in, and he must have been recog-
nized by the shopkeeper, if the latter had been
at all in the habit of dealing in town prints.—
He was however supposed to be a customer, and
the cheap articles were exhibited to his view.—
Amongst them all there was not a single town
print—they were, to a piece, job trash, which
might be got at Manchester or anywhere else for
18d. or 20d. a yard. It is rather remarkable
that he saw the carriage of a bargain-hunting
lawyer's wife at the door as he was retiring, and
afterwards observed the same carriage at the door
of the very fellow in Oxford-street who played
the respectable trick with the piece of silk da-
mask; but whether she hawked any patterns
from the one honest concern to the other, or any
ingenious and well-merited fraud was played off
upon her, lie did not stop to ascertain.
It is enough to shock and disgust any man of
humanity to see how rapidly many of those ad-
venturers become opulent by the tricks of trade,
while the honest shopkeeper declines in propor-
tion, and may be obliged to undergo the revolt-
ing alternative of the Gazette after years of la-
bour. There are hundreds of instances : we
could name hundreds. Take one instance of the
success of the former. A shopman to a respect-
able house (his service' over-valued at 251.
a-year), finding that the town presented a rich
harvest for empirics of all sorts, contrived to
open a house, and advertised great varieties of
trash for peremptory sale. He had the ingenuity
to address himself to the compassion of the public
in well-penned articles, calling upon those who
felt for the poor to purchase cheap flannels or
blankets for their service, at his house, which
was supplied with large quantities, to be disposed
of at the lowest possible price, in consideration
of the approaching severity of winter. This
caught the psalm-singers, who considered the
advertiser's heart as " touched with pity," and
flew off to the congenial soul with their ready
money. With seven shillings' worth of print he
contrived to snare hundreds, and there was not a
single deception amongst all we have exposed,
that was not resorted to in the immense business
which his piety and tender-heartedness attracted
to his shop. Well, he prospered; in 10 years
he retired with a large fortune, and he now
drives in the parks in his carriage, or rides a la
militaire ; while his old master, after a laborious

but honest exertion of more than 30 years, either
walks, or jolts on the top of Et stage to town,
from Fulham, to pursue the calling which has
not yet enabled him to appear in a vehicle of his
own. And yet the retired gentleman actually
did not understand his own cash-book, and was
so ignorant of the business in which he professed
to embark, as to be most easily imposed upon

himself; for it was only necessary to ask hi'
three times as much for an article as it was viol
to obtain his custom at a good profit, it being
principle with him to judge of the exorbitant
petite of others by his own, and to offer no 01°'
than one-third of a demand under any circuit
stances.
We are aware that numbers of most respec!,
ble and honourable tradesmen, at the same ti
that they most readily bear testimony to the try,
of every syllable that has appeared in this Pa
ro
on this momentous subject, are apprehensive t.
suspicions may be excited by the exposure agl;
the great body of which they are members. .0
is far from our wish that men of this deseriptld,
should be mixed up in the heavy censure
thewl
has been raised in the public mind
against
fraudulent dealers, who branch out like 91,
streams from a few great sources of polltio'ar
But every good of serious magnitude le lcfrose
panied with some real or apparent evil,
a"
ugi-
who consider that our observations are 11°. Seise
ciently discriminative, will admit the cOunte'',oo.
which has been afforded in the efficacious -their
demnation of a mode of dealing by whichi,,ect
own honest efforts have been almost pall'Tani
It has been our desire to rescue them from
imputation—to protect them from the fatal Ireir
ration of this debasing system; not to wound t,!•cii
feelings by instituting a comparison from 1001
they would naturally shrink with disgust, ade
which would indeed be to insult and dOgrAic
them. In all other branches of trade the Ptlyjs
are constantly cheated. In jewellery the
practised are innumerable. A singular fact,
se
been stated by Bushell, a convict, wn°or,
life has been spared, although he vils' le) et
haps, the most accomplished thief thilth,ilt,
deceived the keen eye of a tr.,--tv eto
maker, and plundered the trade of pr°Petic-1, to
the amount of thousands. It was his pt3c-
visit jewellers' shops, accompanied by a the
man, man, whom he described as a merchant, i",
"r
most extensive line in that trade and to oc
,
he appeared to act as interpreter. In manY
the worthy owner, while the Frenchman Ives -or
gaged in examining diamonds,
three sovereigns privately into Bushell'Prevail"3
whispering him at the same time, "
üble
upon him to take something and I'll u°
that." " Yes, yes," Bushell would say, if" to
slipped tw,°od,
full enjoyment of the joke as well as 0' lie
douceur, " you may depend upon it he'll Cider
something." The Frenchman would then °r for
him, and leave the shop, " taking"
certain of these diamonds to be laid sae is
propel or
his sleeve to the amount, perhaps, of 21)° it
3001. This was robbery to be sure, but the" ag
was " biting the biter," and the sympathy Wet
absorbed in the conviction that if the shopkeer,
had not been robbed, why he would have e°'
mitted a robbery himself. The rage for Frew'
trifles which are sold in London and at the Wlv
tering places in such abundance, is amongst t,ile
extraordinary absurdities which distinguish the
votaries of fashion. French jewellery, Freueu
millinery, French rubbish of all sorts, find Or:
chasers at once at any price amongst the great,
and even amongst the servants of the great;
while the poor English mechanic is famishing
home, while in the various districts in which
British articles of the kind ought to be many
factured, the workmen may be seen in the ge"
nuine livery of misfortune, an outcast and
3
beggar.