The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-08-11
xHB RA0IY1O
Commercial Advertiser.


ed vts0. il is such as this country is and will be
ss.sys liable to in eonsequence Of the concentration
o. go abroad, sally in England. Writers
nay talk ~ they p about the folly of playing .
.ess q colonial part In the worlds money market.
We shall however be obliged to do it for many n year
to come ; and II we were as wealthy as we shall be at
sooe nfqre day, I'D some people weakly boast that
we are nov. yet In the nature Of money to duc-
tuate under the PRESSURE Of events, and had we as
nueh e is - England has, its currents would be
~ - run sometimes to one shore, sometimes to the
e<hers jast ~ the waves Of the Atlantic now roll
Hbo1e truce to the war, and to reforms abroad.
There are reforms that really concern ourselves most
intimately They are not Of the constitution, but of
the personal character and conduct of business men.
IL reform, the abolition this country wants, IS the
abolition Of Cheating. The Independent has q chap
ter on cheating; il is q long one of course, or it could
not % much as give the brief list of them. We are
sorry they are 50 numerous, first becausei It makes a
most disgraceful revelation, and then, because it
makes MS 10th to begin to write upon the subject
fom the despair, ON account Of want of space, of pre-
senting anything but a tame, fat outline. A mirror
- needed large enough to reflect the entire features
q the ugly reality. To understand the deformity OF
this vice Of cheating, it ought not only to be seen, but
seen IN all its infinite and disgusting variety. Look
at sope OF the facts.
wholesale or retail dry goods store sells you
twenty pounds of sewing silk. When sent home, its
weight e ten or fifteen pounds, no more. Such is the
custom- A spool of cotton stamped 200 yards mea-
s1res only $50 or IT'S. Ribbons supposed to mea-
sure, and indeed once did, fourteen yards, are only
Twelve fIece SILK ana DINER ROOuS cbutu -, " 20
inches, run 224. 244 264. This is known to mer-
chants-others are deceived
a paper of cut-tacks marked 1000, contains, as
will be found on opening, only 800! You get only
700 percussion caps for 1000. A tool h4 ~cast-steef
stamped on it. There is not a bit of steel in it the
srkAL Is all in the trader.
Abundle Of q gross of galloon should contain of
course II pieces Of II yards each, but it actually
contains but 108 or 12O. A gross of boot-web falls
short one entire piece of 16 yards Eyelets should
have 500 in q box, but you will find but $50 there.
A side of leather is ducked under water for some
time previous to weighing. 1t is q great improve
ment Of the weight.
Il Is a proverbial saying in the Swamp-the leath-
er market of New York-that million of dollars
worth Of water is sold there in every year -
In the -four trade is also fraud. When a cooper
makes Q -four barrel, if the head weighs 20 pounds,
he marks it IL. This has been lately partially cor
rected by . new mode of reckoning rares. Genesee
Is branded on four, if made anywhere in New York
State and New York -four is sometimes marked
Ohio. Merchants know this and the other things,
but common purchasers of single barrels for families
do MOI. dealer may himself brand upon his bar
rels fac-similes of any inspectors brand.
We pass over wines and liquors, the enormous
adulterafions Of which have been so frequently ex-
posed. No eecret is made now of these frauds
Counterfeits Of foreign marks and casks are made,
casks are blackened and made dingy as if by age or
. voyage, and old spiders webs are spun over new
bottles OF wine, which probably are guiltless of a
single drop Of grape juice in the room Of which are
all sorts Of poisonous drugs
At the stationers, you think you get an account
book Of three, four or five quires but the quires
have only skxteener eighteen sheets in them, instead
OF tWenty-our. In the poorest kind Of straw paper
the same cheat Is practised. Your hat falsely pur-
ports to have some from Paris your segars from
Havana Neither is true. The former was made
within an hours ride, the latter by q Jew in Chat
ham street. There il cheating in figs, in fish, IN
nisins. THERE'S cheating in all trades but ours"
says every one. Have you watered the rum,
John 20 Yes SIR" Have yon sanded the
SUGAR." Yes sir" Then come to prayers'-for
that man hal prayers every morning, and he did
not live in New England either and We know, too,
that the "a DEVILS Analysis Of the Soul of a Yankee,
who got into our paper some how or other on Tues
day, Is as true in this latitude as farther east We
close by an extract from the W y. Independent
- Thus, false weights are given f,r true, short
measures are marked for full ; foreign name are
put on domestic goods /; fac-similes of genuine labels
are pasted on spurious packages ; deceptive brands
are marked ON barrels ; false dies are stamped on
cutlery ; lying dates are registered on casks ; old
vintsges arc inscribed on new wines over-values
sss checked on various goods wrong names are
continually given to q thousand articles in every de-
partmeuf Of trade, by which they who buy are con-
tinuaily deceived by those who sell, and Icy which
the general morals Of the mercantile community, as
well as the standards Of honor among individual
men, are inseusibly yet not the less inevitably i'm
paired
Nov a. Martin Luther nailed the ninety-fve pro-
positions to the door Of the church in Wittemburg,
and challenged all men to dispute them, we wish
every merchant would nail to the door of his count
ing room some such heroic proclamation as the fol-
lowing. and challenge all his partners to deny them
That the lawful length Of one foot, linear measure, is
twelve inches, and not nine. ten or eleven that a
'galI0n-pot ought to hold four quarts and not three
and . pint ; that a modern bushel ought still to con-
tain a. much as the old Winchester bushel of Eng
land and not q pint less than four pecks that a
barrel Of -four which is not st to be eaten ought not
to be marked superfne that a quire of paper ought
to count tventy-four sheets and not eighteen or
:. that m M ~ IF mi facla from a hard
ware store ought to number ten hundred instead Of
three hundred !; that the length of two hundred
yards ought TO be quite as great when wound around
. spool. as when measured in the posts and rails Of
. arm fence, or il the coils and braces Of q ships
Another great reform, somewhat different from
Lnfher's in the XVIth century, is now needed in the
XIxth "a reform, not in faith but in works-not
in doctrinal ohics but in practical dealings "a re-
fbrm that shall call things by their right names, and
disown their wrong "a reform that shall enter
every drygoods store and search along every shelf to
msasure the ribbons piece by piece, to weigh the sew
ing silks pound by pound, to wind the full length of
thread on the spool and to mark silk and worsted
only half and half instead Of calling it all silk "a
reform that shall rust out the false stamps from
every blade Of cutlery, and to stamp the true name
coly when the metal has the true ring-a reform
that shall mark an honest value on every pair Of
boob in every shoemaker's shop. and dry every side
Q vst leather in the Swamp before it goes into the
ocnlesHa reform that shall enter among the four
barrels With the vigilance Of a new inspector before
his oGciAl eye-sight grows weak.-and that shall
know the difference between Z" Richmond middlings"
and !. Richmond without the middlingsLand shall
drive away from the Corn Exchange the peddlers
Who el fraudulent branding irons, as the money
changers we're driven from the temple with q whip
ofwall cordsEa reform that shall go down into the
dhz&nem q vine-cellars, like a spectre Of justice,
Ealing for vengesnceAand shall crush the great
op5dou q the vine-vaulf, and sweep away, like a
~ broom the green s4 tySs s sS the h Msds S.
yearls bad Unlikely, colored and shaken together and
lnoefed = non the remarkable vintage of I82O"-a
Fusofm that shall tpke away from the mercantile COM
nnniy the reProach which is now more and more
- hepped upon Il, that business cannot be succesA
- without beng dishonest- reform which. la
1ng4, Hall breaehe into every branch Of commerce
.ud tndnsfzy : truer spirit Of Christian equity and
honori
Such i De reform that is now needed in the mer-
ss.sls vsss1 What dry goods merchant will begin