OF THE CUSTOMARY FRAUDS OF TRADE,
WHICH HONEST MEN ALLOW THEMSELVES TO PRACTISE, AND
PRETEND TO JUSTIFY
As there are trading lies which honest
men tell, so there are frauds in trade, which tradesmen
daily practise, and which, notwithstanding, they think
are consistent with their being honest men.
It is certainly true, that few things
in nature are simply unlawful and dishonest, but that
all crime is made so by the addition and concurrence
of circumstances; and of these I am now to speak:
and the first I take notice of, is that of taking
and repassing, or putting off, counterfeit or false
money.
It must be confessed, that calling
in the old money in the time of the late King William
was an act particularly glorious to that reign, and
in nothing more than this, that it delivered trade
from a terrible load, and tradesmen from a vast accumulated
weight of daily crime. There was scarce a shopkeeper
that had not a considerable quantity or bag full of
false and unpassable money; not an apprentice that
kept his master’s cash, but had an annual loss,
which they sometimes were unable to support, and sometimes
their parents and friends were called upon for the
deficiency.
The consequence was, that every raw
youth or unskilful body, that was sent to receive
money, was put upon by the cunning tradesmen, and all
the bad money they had was tendered in payment among
the good, that by ignorance or oversight some might
possibly be made to pass; and as these took it, so
they were not wanting again in all the artifice and
sleight of hand they were masters of, to put it off
again; so that, in short, people were made bites and
cheats to one another in all their business; and if
you went but to buy a pair of gloves, or stockings,
or any trifle, at a shop, you went with bad money
in one hand, and good money in the other, proffering
first the bad coin, to get it off, if possible, and
then the good, to make up the deficiency, if the other
was rejected.
Thus, people were daily upon the catch
to cheat and surprise one another, if they could;
and, in short, paid no good money for anything, if
they could help it. And how did we triumph, if
meeting with some poor raw servant, or ignorant woman,
behind a counter, we got off a counterfeit half-crown,
or a brass shilling, and brought away their goods
(which were worth the said half-crown or shilling,
if it had been good) for a half-crown that was perhaps
not worth sixpence, or for a shilling not worth a
penny: as if this were not all one with picking
the shopkeeper’s pocket, or robbing his house!
The excuse ordinarily given for this
practice was this namely, that it came
to us for good; we took it, and it only went as it
came; we did not make it, and the like; as if, because
we had been basely cheated by A, we were to be allowed
to cheat B; or that because C had robbed our house,
that therefore we might go and rob D.
And yet this was constantly practised
at that time over the whole nation, and by some of
the honestest tradesmen among us, if not by all of
them.
When the old money was, as I have
said, called in, this cheating trade was put to an
end, and the morals of the nation in some measure
restored for, in short, before that, it
was almost impossible for a tradesman to be an honest
man; but now we begin to fall into it again, and we
see the current coin of the kingdom strangely crowded
with counterfeit money again, both gold and silver;
and especially we have found a great deal of counterfeit
foreign money, as particularly Portugal and Spanish
gold, such as moydores and Spanish pistoles, which,
when we have the misfortune to be put upon with them,
the fraud runs high, and dips deep into our pockets,
the first being twenty-seven shillings, and the latter
seventeen shillings. It is true, the latter being
payable only by weight, we are not often troubled with
them; but the former going all by tale, great quantities
of them have been put off among us. I find, also,
there is a great increase of late of counterfeit money
of our own coin, especially of shillings, and the quantity
increasing, so that, in a few years more, if the wicked
artists are not detected, the grievance may be in
proportion as great as it was formerly, and perhaps
harder to be redressed, because the coin is not likely
to be any more called in, as the old smooth money was.
What, then, must be done? And
how must we prevent the mischief to conscience and
principle which lay so heavy upon the whole nation
before? The question is short, and the answer
would be as short, and to the purpose, if people would
but submit to the little loss that would fall upon
them at first, by which they would lessen the weight
of it as they go on, as it would never increase to
such a formidable height as it was at before, nor
would it fall so much upon the poor as it did then.
First, I must lay it down as a stated
rule or maxim, in the moral part of the question that
to put off counterfeit base money for good money,
knowing it to be counterfeit, is dishonest and knavish.
Nor will it take off from the crime
of it, or lessen the dishonesty, to say, ‘I
took it for good and current money, and it goes as
it comes;’ for, as before, my having been cheated
does not authorise me to cheat any other person, so
neither was it a just or honest thing in that person
who put the bad money upon me, if they knew it to be
bad; and if it were not honest in them, how can it
be so in me? If, then, it came by knavery, it
should not go by knavery that would be,
indeed, to say, it goes as it comes, in a literal
sense; that is to say, it came by injustice, and I
shall make it go so: but that will not do in matters
of right and wrong.
The laws of our country, also, are
directly against the practice; the law condemns the
coin as illegal that is to say, it is not
current money, or, as the lawyers style it, it is
not lawful money of England. Now, every bargain
or agreement in trade, is in the common and just acceptation,
and the language of trade, made for such a price or
rate, in the current money of England; and though
you may not express it in words at length, it is so
understood, as much as if it were set down in writing.
If I cheapen any thing at a shop, suppose it the least
toy or trifle, I ask them, ‘What must you have
for it?’ The shopkeeper answers so
much; suppose it were a shilling, what is the English
but this one shilling of lawful money of
England? And I agree to give that shilling; but
instead of it give them a counterfeit piece of lead
or tin, washed over, to make it look like a shilling.
Do I pay them what I bargained for? Do I give
them one shilling of lawful money of England?
Do I not put a cheat upon them, and act against justice
and mutual agreement?
To say I took this for the lawful
money of England, will not add at all, except it be
to the fraud; for my being deceived does not at all
make it be lawful money: so that, in a word,
there can be nothing in that part but increasing the
criminal part, and adding one knave more to the number
of knaves which the nation was encumbered with before.
The case to me is very clear, namely,
that neither by law, justice, nor conscience, can
the tradesman put off his bad money after he has taken
it, if he once knows it to be false and counterfeit
money. That it is against the law is evident,
because it is not good and lawful money of England;
it cannot be honest, because you do not pay in the
coin you agreed for, or perform the bargain you made,
or pay in the coin expected of you; and it is not
just, because you do not give a valuable consideration
for the goods you buy, but really take a tradesman’s
goods away, and return dross and dirt to him in the
room of it.
The medium I have to propose in the
room of this, is, that every man who takes a counterfeit
piece of money, and knows it to be such, should immediately
destroy it that is to say, destroy it as
money, cut it in pieces; or, as I have seen some honest
tradesmen do, nail it up against a post, so that it
should go no farther. It is true, this is sinking
so much upon himself, and supporting the credit of
the current coin at his own expense, and he loses
the whole piece, and this tradesmen are loth to do:
but my answer is very clear, that thus they ought to
do, and that sundry public reasons, and several public
benefits, would follow to the public, in some of which
he might have his share of benefit hereafter, and
if he had not, yet he ought to do it.
First, by doing thus, he puts a stop
to the fraud that piece of money is no
more made the instrument to deceive others, which otherwise
it might do; and though it is true that the loss is
only to the last man, that is to say, in the ordinary
currency of the money, yet the breach upon conscience
and principle is to every owner through whose hands
that piece of money has fraudulently passed, that
is to say, who have passed it away for good, knowing
it to be counterfeit; so that it is a piece of good
service to the public to take away the occasion and
instrument of so much knavery and deceit.
Secondly, he prevents a worse fraud,
which is, the buying and selling such counterfeit
money. This was a very wicked, but open trade,
in former days, and may in time come to be so again:
fellows went about the streets, crying ’Brass
money, broken or whole;’ that is to say,
they would give good money for bad. It was at
first pretended that they were obliged to cut it in
pieces, and if you insisted upon it, they would cut
it in pieces before your face; but they as often got
it without that ceremony, and so made what wicked
shifts they could to get it off again, and many times
did put it off for current money, after they had bought
it for a trifle.
Thirdly, by this fraud, perhaps, the
same piece of money might, several years after, come
into your hands again, after you had sold it for a
trifle, and so you might lose by the same shilling
two or three times over, and the like of other people;
but if men were obliged to demolish all the counterfeit
money they take, and let it go no farther, they they
would be sure the fraud could go no farther, nor would
the quantity be ever great at a time; for whatever
quantity the false coiners should at any time make,
it would gradually lessen and sink away, and not a
mass of false and counterfeit coin appear together,
as was formerly the case, and which lost the nation
a vast sum of money to call in.
It has been the opinion of some, that
a penalty should be inflicted upon those who offered
any counterfeit money in payment; but besides that,
there is already a statute against uttering false money,
knowing it to be such. If any other or farther
law should be made, either to enforce the statute,
or to have new penalties added, they would still fall
into the same difficulties as in the act.
1. That innocent men would suffer,
seeing many tradesmen may take a piece of counterfeit
money in tale with other money, and really and bona
fide not know it, and so may offer it again as
innocently as they at first took it ignorantly; and
to bring such into trouble for every false shilling
which they might offer to pay away without knowing
it, would be to make the law be merely vexatious and
tormenting to those against whom it was not intended,
and at the same time not to meddle with the subtle
crafty offender whom it was intended to punish, and
who is really guilty.
2. Such an act would be difficultly
executed, because it would still be difficult to know
who did knowingly utter false money, and who did not;
which is the difficulty, indeed, in the present law so
that, upon the whole, such a law would no way answer
the end, nor effectually discover the offender, much
less suppress the practice. But I am not upon
projects and schemes it is not the business
of this undertaking.
But a general act, obliging all tradesmen
to suppress counterfeit money, by refusing to put
it off again, after they knew it to be counterfeit,
and a general consent of tradesmen to do so; this would
be the best way to put a stop to the practice, the
morality of which is so justly called in question,
and the ill consequences of which to trade are so very
well known; nor will any thing but a universal consent
of tradesmen, in the honest suppressing of counterfeit
money, ever bring it to pass. In the meantime,
as to the dishonesty of the practice, however popular
it is grown at this time, I think it is out of question;
it can have nothing but custom to plead for it, which
is so far from an argument, that I think the plea
is criminal in itself, and really adds to its being
a grievance, and calls loudly for a speedy redress.
Another trading fraud, which, among
many others of the like nature, I think worth speaking
of, is the various arts made use of by tradesmen to
set off their goods to the eye of the ignorant buyer.
I bring this in here, because I really
think it is something of kin to putting off counterfeit
money; every false gloss put upon our woollen manufactures,
by hot-pressing, folding, dressing, tucking, packing,
bleaching, &c, what are they but washing over a brass
shilling to make it pass for sterling? Every
false light, every artificial side-window, sky-light,
and trunk-light we see made to show the fine Hollands,
lawns, cambrics, &c. to advantage, and to deceive
the buyer what is it but a counterfeit
coin to cheat the tradesman’s customers? an
ignis fatuus to impose upon fools and ignorant
people, and make their goods look finer than they
are?
But where in trade is there any business
entirely free from these frauds? and how shall we
speak of them, when we see them so universally made
use of? Either they are honest, or they are not.
If they are not, why do we, I say, universally make
use of them? if they are honest, why so
much art and so much application to manage them, and
to make goods appear fairer and finer to the eye than
they really are? which, in its own nature,
is evidently a design to cheat, and that in itself
is criminal, and can be no other.
And yet there is much to be said for
setting goods out to the best advantage too; for in
some goods, if they are not well dressed, well pressed,
and packed, the goods are not really shown in a true
light; many of our woollen manufactures, if brought
to market rough and undressed, like a piece of cloth
not carried to the fulling or thicking mill, it does
not show itself to a just advantage, nay, it does not
show what it really is; and therefore such works as
may be proper for so far setting it forth to the eye
may be necessary. For example:
The cloths, stuffs, serges, druggets,
&c, which are brought to market in the west and northern
parts of England, and in Norfolk, as they are bought
without the dressing and making up, it may be said
of them that they are brought to market unfinished,
and they are bought there again by the wholesale dealers,
or cloth-workers, tuckers, and merchants, and they
carry them to their warehouses and workhouses, and
there they go through divers operations again, and
are finished for the market; nor, indeed, are they
fit to be shown till they are so; the stuffs are in
the grease, the cloth is in the oil, they are rough
and foul, and are not dressed, and consequently not
finished; and as our buyers do not understand them
till they are so dressed, it is no proper finishing
the goods to bring them to market before they
are not, indeed, properly said to be made till that
part is done.
Therefore I cannot call all those
setting-out of goods to be knavish and false; but
when the goods, like a false shilling, are to be set
out with fraud and false colours, and made smooth
and shining to delude the eye, there, where they are
so, it is really a fraud; and though in some cases
it extremely differs, yet that does not excuse the
rest by any means.
The packers and hot-pressers, tuckers,
and cloth-workers, are very necessary people in their
trades, and their business is to set goods off to
the best advantage; but it may be said, too, that their
true and proper business is to make the goods show
what really they are, and nothing else. It is
true, as above, that in the original dress, as a piece
of cloth or drugget, or stuff, comes out of the hand
of the maker, it does not show itself as it really
is, nor what it should and ought to show: thus
far these people are properly called finishers of the
manufactures, and their work is not lawful only, but
it is a doing justice to the manufacture.
But if, by the exubérances of
their art, they set the goods in a false light, give
them a false gloss, a finer and smoother surface than
really they have: this is like a painted jade,
who puts on a false colour upon her tawny skin to
deceive and delude her customers, and make her seem
the beauty which she has no just claim to the name
of.
So far as art is thus used to show
these goods to be what they really are not, and deceive
the buyer, so far it is a trading fraud, which is
an unjustifiable practice in business, and which, like
coining of counterfeit money, is making goods to pass
for what they really are not; and is done for the
advantage of the person who puts them off, and to
the loss of the buyer, who is cheated and deceived
by the fraud.
The making false lights, sky-lights,
trunks, and other contrivances, to make goods look
to be what they are not, and to deceive the eye of
the buyer, these are all so many brass shillings washed
over, in order to deceive the person who is to take
them, and cheat him of his money; and so far these
false lights are really criminal, they are cheats in
trade, and made to deceive the world; to make deformity
look like beauty, and to varnish over deficiencies;
to make goods which are ordinary in themselves appear
fine; to make things which are ill made look well;
in a word, they are cheats in themselves, but being
legitimated by custom, are become a general practice;
the honestest tradesmen have them, and make use of
them; the buyer knows of it, and suffers himself to
be so imposed upon; and, in a word, if it be a cheat,
as no doubt it is, they tell us that yet it is a universal
cheat, and nobody trades without it; so custom and
usage make it lawful, and there is little to be said
but this, Si populus vult decepi, decipiatur if
the people will be cheated, let them be cheated, or
they shall be cheated.
I come next to the setting out their
goods to the buyer by the help of their tongue; and
here I must confess our shop rhetoric is a strange
kind of speech; it is to be understood in a manner
by itself; it is to be taken, not in a latitude only,
but in such a latitude as indeed requires as many
flourishes to excuse it, as it contains flourishes
in itself.
The end of it, indeed, is corrupt,
and it is also made up of a corrupt composition; it
is composed of a mass of rattling flattery to the buyer,
and that filled with hypocrisy, compliment, self-praises,
falsehood, and, in short, a complication of wickedness;
it is a corrupt means to a vicious end: and I
cannot see any thing in it but what a wise man laughs
at, a good man abhors, and any man of honesty avoids
as much as possible.
The shopkeeper ought, indeed, to have
a good tongue, but he should not make a common prostitute
of his tongue, and employ it to the wicked purpose
of abusing and imposing upon all that come to deal
with him. There is a modest liberty, which trading
licence, like the poetic licence, allows to all the
tradesmen of every kind: but tradesmen ought
no more to lie behind the counter, than the parsons
ought to talk treason in the pulpit.
Let them confine themselves to truth,
and say what they will. But it cannot be done;
a talking rattling mercer, or draper, or milliner,
behind his counter, would be worth nothing if he should
confine himself to that mean silly thing called truth they
must lie; it is in support of their business, and
some think they cannot live without it; but I deny
that part, and recommend it, I mean to the tradesmen
I am speaking of, to consider what a scandal it is
upon trade, to pretend to say that a tradesman cannot
live without lying, the contrary to which may be made
appear in almost every article.
On the other hand, I must do justice
to the tradesmen, and must say, that much of it is
owing to the buyers they begin the work,
and give the occasion. It was the saying of a
very good shopman once upon this occasion, ’That
their customers would not be pleased without lying;
and why,’ said he, ’did Solomon reprove
the buyer? he said nothing to the shopkeeper “It
is naught, it is naught,” says the buyer; “but
when he goes away, then he boasteth” (Prov.
x.) The buyer telling us,’ adds he, ’that
every thing is worse than it is, forces us, in justifying
its true value, to tell them it is better than it
is.’
It must be confessed, this verbose
way of trading is most ridiculous, as well as offensive,
both in buyer and seller; and as it adds nothing to
the goodness or value of the goods, so, I am sure,
it adds nothing to the honesty or good morals of the
tradesman, on one side or other, but multiplies trading-lies
on every side, and brings a just reproach on the integrity
of the dealer, whether he be the buyer or seller.
It was a kind of a step to the cure
of this vice in trade, for such it is, that there
was an old office erected in the city of London, for
searching and viewing all the goods which were sold
in bulk, and could not be searched into by the buyer this
was called garbling; and the garbler having
viewed the goods, and caused all damaged or unsound
goods to be taken out, set his seal upon the case
or bags which held the rest, and then they were vouched
to be marketable, so that when the merchant and the
shopkeeper met to deal, there was no room for any words
about the goodness of the wares; there was the garbler’s
seal to vouch that they were marketable and good,
and if they were otherwise, the garbler was answerable.
This respected some particular sorts
of goods only, and chiefly spices and drugs, and dye-stuffs,
and the like. It were well if some other method
than that of a rattling tongue could be found out,
to ascertain the goodness and value of goods between
the shopkeeper and the retail buyer, that such a flux
of falsehoods and untruths might be avoided, as we
see every day made use of to run up and run down every
thing that is bought or sold, and that without any
effect too; for, take it one time with another, all
the shopkeeper’s lying does not make the buyer
like the goods at all the better, nor does the buyer’s
lying make the shopkeeper sell the cheaper.
It would be worth while to consider
a little the language that passes between the tradesman
and his customer over the counter, and put it into
plain homespun English, as the meaning of it really
imports. We would not take that usage if it were
put into plain words it would set all the
shopkeepers and their customers together by the ears,
and we should have fighting and quarrelling, instead
of bowing and curtseying, in every shop. Let
us hark a little, and hear how it would sound between
them. A lady comes into a mercer’s shop
to buy some silks, or to the laceman’s to buy
silver laces, or the like; and when she pitches upon
a piece which she likes, she begins thus:
Lady. I like that
colour and that figure well enough, but I don’t
like the silk there is no substance in it.
Mer. Indeed, Madam,
your ladyship lies it is a very substantial
silk.
Lady.-No, no! you lie indeed,
Sir; it is good for nothing; it will do no service.
Mer. Pray, Madam,
feel how heavy it is; you will find it is a lie; the
very weight of it may satisfy you that you lie, indeed,
Madam.
Lady. Come, come,
show me a better piece; I am sure you have better.
Mer. Indeed, Madam,
your ladyship lies; I may show you more pieces, but
I cannot show you a better; there is not a better piece
of silk of that sort in London, Madam.
Lady. Let me see that piece of crimson
there.
Mer. Here it is, Madam.
Lady. No, that won’t
do neither; it is not a good colour.
Mer. Indeed, Madam,
you lie; it is as fine a colour as can be dyed.
Lady. Oh fy! you
lie, indeed, Sir; why, it is not in grain.
Mer. Your ladyship
lies, upon my word, Madam; it is in grain, indeed,
and as fine as can be dyed.
I might make this dialogue much longer,
but here is enough to set the mercer and the lady
both in a flame, and to set the shop in an uproar,
if it were but spoken out in plain language, as above;
and yet what is all the shop-dialect less or more
than this? The meaning is plain it
is nothing but you lie, and you lie downright
Billingsgate, wrapped up in silk and satin, and delivered
dressed finely up in better clothes than perhaps it
might come dressed in between a carman and a porter.
How ridiculous is all the tongue-padding
flutter between Miss Tawdry, the sempstress, and Tattle,
my lady’s woman, at the change-shop, when the
latter comes to buy any trifle! and how many lies,
indeed, creep into every part of trade, especially
of retail trade, from the meanest to the uppermost
part of business! till, in short, it is
grown so scandalous, that I much wonder the shopkeepers
themselves do not leave it off, for the mere shame
of its simplicity and uselessness.
But habits once got into use are very
rarely abated, however ridiculous they are; and the
age is come to such a degree of obstinate folly, that
nothing is too ridiculous for them, if they please
but to make a custom of it.
I am not for making my discourse a
satire upon the shopkeepers, or upon their customers:
if I were, I could give a long detail of the arts and
tricks made use of behind the counter to wheedle and
persuade the buyer, and manage the selling part among
shopkeepers, and how easily and dexterously they draw
in their customers; but this is rather work for a
ballad and a song: my business is to tell the
complete tradesman how to act a wiser part, to talk
to his customers like a man of sense and business,
and not like a mountebank and his merry-andrew; to
let him see that there is a way of managing behind
a counter, that, let the customer be what or how it
will, man or woman, impertinent or not impertinent for
sometimes, I must say, the men customers are every
jot as impertinent as the women; but, I say, let them
be what they will, and how they will, let them make
as many words as they will, and urge the shopkeeper
how they will, he may behave himself so as to avoid
all those impertinences, falsehoods, follish and wicked
excursions which I complain of, if he pleases.
It by no means follows, that because
the buyer is foolish, the seller must be so too; that
because the buyer has a never-ceasing tongue, the
seller must rattle as fast as she; that because she
tells a hundred lies to run down his goods, he must
tell another hundred to run them up; and that because
she belies the goods one way, he must do the same the
other way.
There is a happy medium in these things.
The shopkeeper, far from being rude to his customers
on one hand, or sullen and silent on the other, may
speak handsomely and modestly, of his goods; what they
deserve, and no other; may with truth, and good manners
too, set forth his goods as they ought to be set forth;
and neither be wanting to the commodity he sells,
nor run out into a ridiculous extravagance of words,
which have neither truth of fact nor honesty of design
in them.
Nor is this middle way of management
at all less likely to succeed, if the customers have
any share of sense in them, or the goods he shows any
merit to recommend them; and I must say, I believe
this grave middle way of discoursing to a customer,
is generally more effectual, and more to the purpose,
and more to the reputation of the shopkeeper, than
a storm of words, and a mouthful of common, shop-language,
which makes a noise, but has little in it to plead,
except to here and there a fool that can no otherwise
be prevailed with.
It would be a terrible satire upon
the ladies, to say that they will not be pleased or
engaged either with good wares or good pennyworths,
with reasonable good language, or good manners, but
they must have the addition of long harangues, simple,
fawning, and flattering language, and a flux of false
and foolish words, to set off the goods, and wheedle
them in to lay out their money; and that without these
they are not to be pleased.
But let the tradesman try the honest
part, and stand by that, keeping a stock of fashionable
and valuable goods in his shop to show, and I dare
say he will run no venture, nor need he fear customers;
if any thing calls for the help of noise, and rattling
words, it must be mean and sorry, unfashionable, and
ordinary goods, together with weak and silly buyers;
and let the buyers that chance to read this remember,
that whenever they find the shopkeeper begins his
noise, and makes his fine speeches, they ought to
suppose he (the shopkeeper) has trash to bring out,
and believes he has fools to show it to.