Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-06-04
AtisreIIanepus.b g
y fr0m tre n. Y. Independent.
CHAPTER ON CHEATING.

aud suspicion detects the deceit. But a petty cheat
often repeated. soon loses its novelty until, being
profitable, it soon becomes current; and being cur
rent, it becomes respectable. Ia this man
o ner q host of small knaveries have crept
into business, which, because they are not
sdisreputable are thought not to be dishonest; for
some cheats are sracticed by business men SO fire.
suueutly, that at last oil consciousness Of the cheat
ing entirely vanishes from their minds.
Thus, false weights are given for true; short
measures are marked for full foreign names are
put on domestic goods fac SiRics of genuine la
bells are pasted on spurious packages deceptive
brands are marked on barrels; false dies are STAN
ped on cutlery lying dates are registered On
casks; old vintages arc inscribed on new wines;
over values are checked on various goods; wrong
names are continually given to a thousand articles
in every department Of trade, 10y which they who
buy are continually deceived by those who sell
aad by which the general morals of the mercantile
community as we'll as the standards of honor
among individual men, are insensibly yet not the
less inevitably impaired.
Lovk at the factsl c. into a dry goods store,
Wholesale or retail. and order twenty pounds Of
sewing silk; your package, after it is made up and
sent home, will perhaps weigh from ten to fifteen
pounds, and no more. For, in the days when
things were called by their right names, a pound
of sewing silk consisted Of full sixteen ounces av-
oirdupois, exclusive Of the wrapper; lat the little
bundle now called q pound contains never more
than from eight to twelve ounces wrapper inclu-|
ded; so that the false weight is sold under the true
name. A spool Of cotton, Of which the legitimate
length, as well as the most frequent stamp, is 200
yards" will be found, on actually unwinding il
to measure only $50 or IT'S. Ribbons, which
originally measured fourteen yards to the piece,
and are still popularity supposed to measure the
same, are only twelve, and in some instances only
ten. Piece silks and other goods. called "a, &c
and % inches wide, run instead only 22}, 244, and
264 inches. This deception is known to merch-
anti who are accordingly not deceived by it; they
buy and sell with the mutual understanding that
the articles are not what they purport to be; while
by the great multitude of persons who buy not
to sell but to consume, the false measures are ac-
lcepted as the true, and the deception is seldom
suspected or discovered.
Inquire of any other business, whether its min
ute dealings be any moro honest. Here is a great
hardware establishment; 60 in, and for the mere
experiment buy n paper of cut tacks. Now, cut
tacks were originally put up in packages contain
Hs'6 Wv ONseh y al PoSh"SOo "a ohi
mentioned in orders and charged on ledgers, as SO
many thousands of cut tacks." But each thou
sand on being counted, excites a disagreeatle sur
prise by turning out to be only three hundred! Or
ask for o paper Of percussion caps-you imagine.
in like manner, that you are buying a'thousand,"
while sou are actually getting only seven hundred;
in other words you are cheated out of three hun.
dred, or about thirty per cent, of the whole pur-
chase. If you buy On ordinary hand,saw, or shov-
%, st will Invariably be stamped on the blade,
''cast steel 7" while it is very well known to the
trade land very little known out Of the 'trade) that
there is not a single particle of cast steel in its
composition a trace chain marked"No.3" IS actually
mo. A." con cealing under q false number q cheat
of one entire grade of wire. So the hard-wareltrade
exhibits no great improvement on the dry goods
Now 60 among the boot and shoe warehouses
Here is a sample Of galoon-a neat little bundle
that passes for a gross. Now the ideal gross OF
galoon contains twelve pieces of tw elve yards
each; bus the actual and vulgar gross in your hand
contains twelve pieces of nine or ten yards each
making los, or 100 instead of l44 yards. A gross
~boot-web, which ought to contain nine pieces of
sixteen yards, usually falls short the mere trihe of
an entire piece. Eyelets that should come 500 in
u Dh& uuVS u 2aySl5rhOus WY u uWluullnR QOWD
to. $50. A side of leather, whose fair and honest
weight can be ascertained only when it is dry, is
made to weigh a pound heavier by being ducked
under wafer or stored in q damp place. Indeed
it is a proverbial saying in the Swamp, that
million dollars worth of tcater is sold there every
year. !" So the name Of the place is not inapprc
pirate to this general wetness And it cannot b.
denied that if there was any reasonable p~ossibilit,
Of making a customer believe that he had onl,
one foot instead of two, hundreds of dealers woul,
be ready to sell one shoe, instead of two for
pair.
What also Of the flour trade? Here too, are con
tinual frauds in short weight, and in tares
When a cooper makes a four-barrel, he mark
its weight on the head; that is to say. if weigh
twenty pounds, he marks it seventeen. Const
quently, when The barrel is filled, and it passe
from the inspector as of right total weight, th
purchaser is cheated in having bought thre
pounds more of barrel and three pounds less O
-four than he intended. But this fraud is no,
happily rendered more and more difficult by tn
present mode of examining tares, 10 which tween
ty-hye barrels are taken i~ndiscriminately from
large lot, and Of these, five are emptied and weigh
ed, and the average weight of one barrel average
on the whole purchase. Bat other dishonestie
stili remain for instance, Genessee -four took il
name from the small county Of Gcnessee, famou
for superior wheat, but from the subsequent rep,
tstion Of this flour in the market, its name va
soon put on other barrels, until now "Genessee
means to merchants who buy and sell it, for
from sny and every county in this State. In II
same manner, -four made in New York is ofte
branded 'Ohio." and the fiction is misunderstood
not by merchants in the article, but by the hui
dreds and thousands of persons who buy sing
barrels for family use. In Richmond cross mit
dlings,ytb the brand Of 'middliuss"is often shave
Of, and only "Richmond" allowed to remain
producing the effect Of a partial falsehood. by col
eesiing the full treth. Moreover, any hour-desle