The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-10-12 00:00:00

t of a prosf

which represents not much of the s,
'b. ironneartan of tbri

individu

moralit

_ at which every n
sleeve—to which so many elections have given the
a total disregard to the morals of their parliamentary

NATIONAL FALSEHOOD.
" We are always averring that ' Truth will prevail',

Magna est veritas, et preevalebit ; and we never say this
so impressively as when we desire some falsehood to pre-
vail. And truth does not prevail. On the contrary, all
our great public acts of this our new era, of which we
boast so much, have been obtained confessedly by 'enor-
mous lying;' and so much is lying in favour that it is an
additional boast—it is the ornamental Prince to V-

fringe to the r.a,
tional habit, to the cloak-of national iniquity. The Re-
form Bill was fathered by enormous lying ; so were the
successful plottings of the Anti-Corn-Law League. The
latter, having succeeded, think it not worth while to deny
an iniquity of which, indeed, they think it better policy to
brag. They laugh in your face, and say, How could you
be such fools as to believe us, and still to think there are
prophets on the earth ? Our bragging daily and weekly
press teems with swag.gerings about our ' Honest Tra-
ders,' free or shackled ; while the universal adulteration
of coffee with chicory was almost justified, or more than
justified, by being treated by the late Government, in
parliamentary debate, as a very admissible practical joke ;
—and not only so, but the privilege of cheating was with
similar lightness extended to every other trade. by the ar-
gument of the notoriety that everything is adulterated."

WHOLESALE ADULTERATION

he is transpo-

" Tf a man forges a bin rted : is he that,
forges an article of consumption less guilty ? If a poor
rogue—l only pity him by comparison—obtains a little
money under false pretences, he is sent to the treadmill
for cheating an individual. What ought not to be done
to the general cheaters, the large, the wholesale impostors,
who obtain the greatest sums under false pretences, by
cheating everybody ? There is a legal punishment for
short weights : have the authorities yet considered what
short weight really is ? If a grocer sells a pound of coft e
as coffee, and it is only half a pound of coffee and the
other half chicory, ought not the law against short weight
to be extended to such a case ? It is time the legislature
should look a little into this matter of dishonesty. It
would be far better that every tradesman should be obliged
to take out a license, and make his affidavit that he will
not adulterate any goods, than that people should so
largely and so widely be defrauded ; and there are none
who suffer so severely by this free trade in cheatery as the
poor, buying, as they do, upon little credit, both false
weight and deteriorated goods. If it be said, this would
be an infringement upon the liberty of the subject, I an-
swer

so much the better : 1 would have every liberty to
cheat suppressed, and, for the general protection, as well
as for the sake of amelioration in honesty, I would mske
the conviction of these frauds a misdemeanour. Perhaps,
even by Maga, I may be thought outrageously out of the
humanities of the present era; but I will out with it. I
do think it a great pity that we have abolished the stocks,
and other personal punishments ' • nor do I believe these
abolitions to be at all good for the very persons who, in
former days, would have been subject to them. I really
am inclined to think that a fat grocer, who, as the farce
says, sands the sugar, waters the tobacco. or sells chicory
for coffee, and then bids his prentices, who do his work,
come to prayers, would be very justly punished by a bas-
tinado on the soles of his feet. I do not see what right
common cheaters have with liberty at all till they know
how to we it. The moment it is made to answer the
purpose of knavery, it ought to be put down ; and, until
put down, we live under the tyranny of the worst kind of
protection. Is it not now.a.days oftentimes rewarded ?"