The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-31
PETTY P1IrERIHes IN TRADE.

49,
school are fond of descanting on the virtues
and felicities that are supposed to bloom and
flourish among people whose habits andtastes,
unperverted by the conventionalities of civil
izstion, have all the charming and sterling
simplicity of primitive and patriarchal times.
We confess that whenever we have looked
about with willing eyes to find in the annals
of history or the explorations of geography
the virtuous and prosperous savages, and the
sanity and happy barbarians, who have been
commended to the admiration and emulation
of the faded habitues of civilized society,
these wondrous and captivating examples
have invariably vanished into the realms
of Utopia. The more nearly, indeed, that
men are found approaching to absolutely un-
conventional conditions of life, the more
nearly do they exemplify the prosaic and Bit
ter theory of old Hobbies that the primitive
and purely natural man was primitive and
purely natural robber and thief, who
took to war and rapine upon his fell
lows as spontaneously as boys In
these days will take to hunting and
fishing. Humanity speaking, then, nothing
would seem to be more natural than plumber
ing and stealing. But it was necessary to the
existence and growth of organized society that
the aggressive and raptorial instincts should
be put under the restraint of some other law
than the ler tdlionis of wild humanity. Re
spectfor rights of persons and property in
creased in ratio with the benefits of peaceful
industry and commerce. Such at least, ac-
cording to the Hobbesean theory, was
the process by which men were tanned
and civilized, and lreconciled to the re-
nunciation of the natural right of individual
warfare and rapine. Whether this was the
origin of our present civilization or not, it is
certain that this civilization can point to no
stronger reason of its being than the need,
which it has proposed to satisfy, that
justice and fair dealing should be
established and recognized las an
indispensable basis of social stability, pros
perity and happiness. And yet how far is
this fundamental condition from being real
lied in the multiplied pursuits and transac-
tons of private business, to say nothing of
spoliative legislation and official fraud and
corruption. For instance, a leading New
York journal, the World, has recently taken
the trouble to test the weights and measures
given to customers in the retail grocery trade
of New York, and they have proved almost
invariably below, never above, the standards
fixed by law. In the sale of several staple
commodities the average deficiency was as
much as ten per cent. Just think of it. In
addition to national, State and municipal
taxes-a staggering load-the mass OF the
community are taxed at the rate of ten cents
in the dollar on what they must daily
consume in order to keep soul and body
togetherl The fact might well be start
ling if it challenged the attention with
the rOIvv of novelty. Dut II tak1s uubudy
by surprise. 1t belongs to trick of trade
that is not confined to the retail grocery
business trick of trade that is not con.
fined to New York city, or peculiar to any
latitude or longitude. People Injured to
6 ways of business assume short weight
and short measure as unavoidable losses
which they must neutraize by offsets in
kind or in equivalent Consequently, as
to them the trick, no matter how bold or
gouging is an abortive one. But, viewed in
its more general relations, it is, in the long
run, at once futile for the class who employ
it, and positively pernicious to the commu-
nifty at large. Carried without scruple to a
high degree, under the unchecked impulse of
blind cupidity it would become a chronic
social evil fraught with universal impoverish-
ment and dangerous to the cohesion of civil
lied society. But it is scarcely conceivable,
unless our present civilization is confessed
failure, that the practice will ever reach that
extremity. Meanwhile, there can be no doubt
IS to how disciple of Hobbies would construe
The phenomenon. To him it would doubt
less appear simply as an outcropping, through |
he crust and varnish of civilization, of the |
Did ferine. instinct of the natural mantle |
to prey upon his fellows, and to |
recognize but one side of the question of |
nelun ct tlnun namely the me,tm side. How |
aver this be, it is to be hoped that men will |
It length come to understand that 90 tricks of |
rade," and all other refined and indirect |
orms of plundering and pilfering, are not |
he legitimate fruits of civilization, but of |
atent barbarism, and signify relapse towards |
he lowest conditions and types of human |
existence Public opinion will then no longer
predatory cupidity in any guise. |
There will then be no longer any such dis
inctions as conventional and unconventional |
honesty and dishonesty. Robbery will then
'e robbery, stealing will be stealing by what
yer tricks, devices and subterfuges they may
'e perpetrated; and the day of criminal i'm
unity will be over. There will be no more
thieves and admired plunderers
Z public or private walks.