THE Pages at the back of the Statistical Tables | but the most unfortunate feature in the case is, that inserted in the present Number are left blank for the purposes of binding. The following extracts from a specch recently delivered at a public meeting are here inserted, because Mr. Mayhew believes that they express very clearly and simply one of the great evils of the time-an over large machinery for the distribution of our products, and the puffing, pushing, and cheating necessarily arising therefrom. If the country be over populated, assuredly it is so with traders, rather than workers; and yet we never hear of schemes for shipping off some hundreds of them. That the distributor is a very useful element in the economy of every State there cannot be the least doubt, serving both consumer and producer; but an excess of such people is, perhaps, one of the greatest evils that can befall a nation. That there are most honourable men connected with trade Mr. Mayhew most readily admits, having in the course of his investigations met with many such, but that the majority are compelled-by the very excess of the class, and the consequent struggle to live-to resort to frauds, cheats, and chicanery that they in their consciences must despise, all experience goes to prove. the public generally give credence to those who make the boldest assertions. As an illustration of this fact I would mention, that the parties who were lately fined by government for adulteration were, without exception, making the greatest professions of the purity and cheapness of their ar ticles, and of the fairness of their mode of doing business, and I may add that they were doing the largest retail trades, and receiving more patronage from the public than others who were less noisy but more honest; and the same view is borne out by the recent exposures in the Lancet-all the parties exposed are doing the largest trades, and they all make the greatest professions of the purity of their goods and the uprightness of their dealings. The object of these unscrupulous tradesmen is always to appear to be cheap; to maintain this appearance every article is adulterated that can be | without being easily detected, and they are markad at such prices that their more honest rivals cannot compete with them. They put ground rice with their white pepper; a composition called P. D., costing about one penny per lb., with their black pepper; chicory with their coffee; and potato flour with their sugar; tea comes to their hand ready adulterated with starch, gum, dirt, and paint. "Mr. Woodin said :-I shall endeavour to show Another trick resorted to, to gain an appearance the truc position which the class to which I be of cheapness, is to sell some article which the public long holds under competitive arrangements. As know the value of, at or below the cost price, and shopkeepers it is our province to distribute the pro- the public take it for granted that the person doing ductions of others- we give no new intrinsic value so is cheap in everything else. Goods sold in this to the articles that pass through our hands. Ie Calico is a way are called leading articles.' buy a stated quantity of goods for a given sum, leading article' with the draper; he sells this at and we sell a lesser quantity for the same sum- a halfpenny a yard less than the cost; and this the difference is our profit, on which we live; the enables him to charge many shillings and often interests of the distributor and the consumer are pounds more than the proper price for shawls and therefore opposed to each other, because it is the other articles that have no fixed standard of value. interest of the consumer to get as much as possible The grocer makes sugar his principal leading for his money, and of the distributor to give as article, because the public can pretty nearly tell its little as possible. Tradesmen are all well an are that value; he therefore sells it a halfpenny a pound their interests are opposed to that of their cus- less than it cost him. He thereby endeavours to tomers—they know very well that their only object lead purchasers to the conclusion that he is equally in going into business is to get as much as they can cheap in everything else if he sells cheap sugar for themselves, to give as little as possible to the they think he must also sell cheap tca. producer for what they buy, and to take as much called in the trade keeping a sugar trap to catch as they can from the consumer for what they sell, tea customers tea customers; but tea is a thing the public canand the more they can take in this way, the nearer not so easily tell the value of, and in the sale of they are to their ultimatum-the realization of a this article the grocer amply compensates himself fortune, and their retirement from business. This for his losses in sugar. By these and similar neis the real and only object of the whole class; but furious practices he attains his object; he gets a in order to obtain this object in the most speedy name for cheapness, gils plenty of patronage, and and certain manner, and at the same time to con- speedily makes a fortune." ceal it as much as possible from the public, they be lost sight of that the distributor adds nothing to assume to be actuated by principles of the purest the wealth of the community, but subtracts from it; philanthropy-they enter into business for the sole consequently there ought to be no more employed in purpose of benefiting the community; Pro bono that way than are sufficient to perform the duty publico' is their motto-their own interest is only only efficiently. After due consideration, I am of opia matter of secondary consideration. Thus the ion that one-tenth of the present persons so emtradesman pretends to one thing, and means to do ployed are sufficient for that purpose; the other and does do something very different. To ensure nine-tenths are misapplying their labour, or at success it is necessary to be a good story-teller.' least their time, and the sooner that labour is diIt is an acknowledged fact, that the men making rected to productive employment, the better it will the greatest professions and the most noise are the be for themselves and for society." most dishonest, and the greatest cheats in trade, | * This is It must not Mr. Vansittart Neale said :-" It had been cal |