Loe raamatut: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443», lehekülg 4

FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY

LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST FRAUDS

There is a proverb full of wisdom—as these brief embodiments of experience often are—to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eye is his merchant.' It has found its way into our legal text-books, to express a principle which modern law has had much in view—that people should look to their own skill and knowledge in making their purchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, by interference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities. Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchant sell by sample, and intentionally give a different article—if a dog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sell him warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel—there should be some punishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, to go far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding the buyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilant check on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without an ample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed by minute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this small by-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes.

And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will be seen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If every thrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxy than they ought to be—if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossy satin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s.,' and who finds it washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower—had his action for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be at once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigational confusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesman who sold 'an inferior article,' which had a fair and attractive appearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!

Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs of England there were passed a number of statutes, which vainly endeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. The wool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation. Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts to force trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to find them if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They would fill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government, was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in the manufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue of legislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish these objects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in this country, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conducted only by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject—it relates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturers produce a sound article.

An act of the 13th of Richard II. (1389), gives this melancholy account of the dishonesty of certain cloth-makers, and provides a penal remedy: 'Forasmuch as divers plain clothes, that be wrought in the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester, be tacked and folded together, and set to sale, of the which clothes a great part be broken, brused, and not agreeing in the colour, neither be according to breadth, nor in no manner to the part of the same clothes showed outwards, but be falsely wrought with divers wools, to the great deceit, loss, and damage, of the people, in so much, that the merchants who buy the same clothes, and carry them out of the realm to sell to strangers, be many times in danger to be slain, and sometimes imprisoned, and put to fine and ransom by the same strangers, and their said clothes burnt or forfeit, because of the great deceit and falsehood that is found in the said clothes when they be untacked and opened, to the great slander of the realm of England. It is ordained and assented, that no plain cloth, tacked nor folded, shall be set to sale within the said counties; but that they be opened, upon pain to forfeit them, so that the buyers may see them and know them, as it is used in the county of Essex.' One would think, that if the buyers found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining, according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always, that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their pleasure, for the more easy carriage of them.' What a very accommodating statute!

And it really is reasonable, in comparison with other enactments on the same subject. In the ninth year of Henry VIII., for instance, an act was passed for 'avoiding deceits in making of woollen clothes,' containing a whole series of troublesome regulations, such as the following: 'That the wool which shall be delivered for or by the clothier to any person or persons, for breaking, combing, carding, or spinning of the same, the delivery therefore shall be by even just poise and weight of averdupois, sealed by authority, not exceeding in weight after the rate of xii pound seemed wool, above one quarter of a pound for the waste of the same wool, and in none other manner; and that the breaker or comber do deliver again to the same clothier the same wool so broken and combed, and the carder and spinner to deliver again to the said clothier yarn of the same wool, by the same even just and true poise and weight (the waste thereof excepted), without any part thereof concealing, or any more oil-water, or other thing put thereunto deceivable.

'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollen yarn to be webbed into cloth, shall weave, work, and put into the web, for cloth to be made thereof, as much and all the same yarn as the clothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver, with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcel thereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the same clothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put in the same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, or other thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon pain to forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence.

'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or coloured woollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in open market, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought.' And so on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series of regulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout.

One would think, that shoes and other leather manufactures are among the last things that require to be made sufficient by legislation. The ill-made shoes wear out, and the purchaser, if he be wise, will not go again to the same shop. Parliament, however, did not leave him in the matter to the resources of his own wisdom. By a statute of the 13th of Richard II., it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers and cordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falsely tanned—also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, and sell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poor commons—it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainer shall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking; and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king all his leather so tanned, and all his boots and shoes.'

Fifty-two years later—in the year 1485, it was found that the people were still cheated with bad boots and shoes—especially, we doubt not, when they bought them cheap—and the legislature, pondering on a possible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision, and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it is enacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen within themselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leather insufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the same leather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in currying and blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and other places, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'—so no tanner is to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put to sale, under the forfeiture of every hyde,' &c.

Let us now introduce our readers to a legislative protection against frauds of a more dire and mysterious character, in the shape of an act passed in the sixth year of Edward VI., 'for stuffing of feather-beds, bolsters, mattresses, and cushions.' Our readers, we hope, will not suppose—as the words might lead them to infer—that these articles are to be stuffed with the act; on the contrary, it would be highly penal so to do. The chief provisions are: 'For the avoiding of the great deceipt used and practised in stuffing of feather-beds, bolsters, pillows, mattresses, cushions, and quilts—be it enacted, that no person or persons whatsoever shall make (to the intent to sell, or offer to be sold) any feather-bed, bolster, or pillow, except the same be stuffed with dry-pulled feathers, or clean down only, without mixing of scalded feathers, fen-down, thistle-down; sand, lime, gravel, unlawful or corrupt stuff, hair, or any other, upon pain of forfeiture,' &c. One would like to know what 'unlawful or corrupt stuff' is, and whether the corruptness be physical through putridity, or merely metaphysical and created, like the unlawfulness by statute. The act provides further, that after a certain day no person 'shall make (to the intent to sell, or offer, or put to sale) any quilt, mattress, or cushions, which shall be stuffed with any other stuff than feathers, wool, or flocks alone,' on pain of forfeiture.

But the most stringent enactments for the protection of the public against such wholesale deceptions appear to have been in the article of fustian; and perhaps the hidden adulterations that suggested the enactments, may be the reason why unsound reasonings and hollow speeches are called fustian. There is something mysteriously awful in the act of the eleventh year of Henry VII., called 'A remedy to avoid deceitful slights used upon fustians.' It begins thus:

'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorn into this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth for doublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the common people of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that have come into the same realm from the said parts to that intent—for that the cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been truly wrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instruments or deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that divers persons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivably imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons, in the most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw the said irons on the said fustians unshorn—by means whereof they pluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and break commonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by crafty sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people fine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of such fustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustian burning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian from the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead of shearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dress them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'

Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.

Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for their occasional—and, to do them justice, it is but occasional—enmity to machinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by the hardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have to seek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature is not entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led to this supposition by finding, in the sixth year of Edward VI., an act 'for the putting down of gig-mills.' It sets out with the principle, that everything that deteriorates manufactured articles does evil, continuing: 'And forasmuch as in many parts of this realm is newly and lately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills called gig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereof the true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloth thereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the said gig-mills'—and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is a general effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than those which are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price, which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear the legislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the more than compensating facility of production.

VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA

It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy. In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all avoid sending coal to Newcastle.

A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether the opera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion; besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, which bring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, and annihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of the Huguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gain companionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen to Thackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, to all intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho.

London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured and first presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables a portion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make large returns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vast capital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and a large amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex. The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificed in such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate of previous adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of the gambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, by collateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise be insoluble.

Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusement to the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; and we say this without attempting to enter into the question of whether it has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talent over the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination of talent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forth in the production of the highest class of works, we must at the same time express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley to sustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing will induce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulus to the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London the musical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to give an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour, and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by the chief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technical knowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all the mysteries of the place.

Our début was made upon the stage, which we examined in its various parts and appendages while the ballet practice was proceeding. The curtain was up: the audience part of the house, from the pit to the ceiling, was covered with linen, in order to preserve the satin draperies from dust. Comparative darkness pervaded the vast space; but the front of the stage was illumined by a pipe of gas, pierced for jets, running over the orchestra from wing to wing; while a beam of sunlight, penetrating through the cords and pulleys of the upper regions, cast a strange lustre on the boards, as if it had come through green glass. Half a dozen chairs were placed in front of the stage, on one of which sat the ballet-master—a stout, bald-headed man, who beat time with his stick. A violinist played at his elbow the skeleton airs of the ballet music, while the male and female dancers executed their assigned parts; the stout bald-headed gentleman occasionally interrupting the rehearsal to suggest improvements, or to issue a peremptory reprimand to one of those pale, pretty things who were bounding across the stage in short muslin petticoats and faded white satin rehearsal chaussure. 'Elle est folle!' 'Allez aux petites maisons!' sounded rather ungallant, if we did not know that an effective drill for so refractory a corps is not to be got through by the aid of the academy of compliments. The master himself, suiting the action to the word, occasionally started up, and making some pas, as an illustrative example, with his heels flying in the air, was certainly in a state of signal incongruity with his aspect, which, when seated, was that of a steady-looking banker's clerk from Lombard Street.

The width of the stage between the so-called fly-rails is 50 feet; while the depth from the footlights to the wall at the back, is 80 feet. But on extraordinary occasions, it is possible to obtain even a longer vista; for the wall opposite the centre of the stage is pierced by a large archway, behind which, to the outer wall, is a space of 36 feet; so that by introducing a scene of a triumphal arch, or some other device, a depth of 100 feet can be obtained, leaving still a clear space of 16 feet behind the furthest scene, round the back of which processions can double. It would otherwise be difficult to comprehend how it is possible, as in the opera of La Juive, to manœuvre here a procession of 394 persons, including a car drawn by eight horses.

The stage itself is covered all over with trap-doors and sliding panels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depth from the boards to the ground below the stage is twenty-two feet, divided into two floors, the lower deck—if I may so call it—being also furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the left of the stage, facing the audience, is a room of good size, close to the flies; this is the property-room of the night, in which are accumulated, previous to the performance, all the articles required for that night, whether it be the toilette-table of a princess, or the pallet and water-jug of a dungeon prisoner. This apartment, the reader may easily understand, is quite distinct from the property store-room, which contains everything required for every opera, from the crown of the Prophet of Munster to the magpie's cage in La Gazza Ladra. There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to be transportable. The large and fine-toned organ, used in the Prophète, Huguenots, and Robert le Diable, is to the right of the stage, opposite the property-room; and the organist, from his position, being unable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-tree baton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery under the control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It would take up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery used in theatrical entertainments; and at anyrate, the parallel slides, the pierced cylinder—by which a ripple is produced on water—and many other devices, however curious and interesting, could not be made intelligible without woodcuts.