342 Absenteeism, and the Edinburgh Revieui. [April, 



Now, what itis that must determine this " equivalent," or " worth in silver," 

 we are not informed. Nor does the writer explain to us, since the man's 

 profit who sells 40s. boots for 50s. silver, is not made " at the expense" of 

 his customer — what is that other trader's profit, and where it comes from, 

 who, having made boots equivalent to 50s. in silver if sold in Holborn, 

 carries them to a window in Bond Street, and there sells them for 65s. 

 or 70s. ? What does this profound person mean when he says that the 

 boot-maker does not thrive at the expense of his customer, — " becaicsehis 

 customers are all doing the same thing, making the same profit in their 

 respective businesses ?"' Does he mean to say, then, that the profit of all 

 trades is the " same" — that the gain of writing dying speeches and 

 Scottish novels would be alike ? And yet the best is to come, for it 

 appears that our very primary notion of a state of things necessary to 

 profit tradesmen is founded in mistake — that those who raise an outcry 

 against absenteeism, take for granted that all tradesmen live at the 

 expense of their customers ; — that this is wholly an error, for that such 

 persons " live by means of their own capital and industry ;" — and that 

 " these would support them, though their customers tvere annihilated /!" 



As the price of the Edinburgh Review is six shillings, a fact like this 

 (being ascertained) ought certainly to have been printed upon a fly-leaf 

 and circulated gratis ; or at least published in a cheap tract separately, 

 or sent as a communication to tlie Mechanics' Magazine, that shop- 

 keepers might become aware of the gross mistake which we have no 

 doubt nineteen-twentieths of them are labouring under. But, with all 

 reasonable deference, is it not very sad trash to argue upon principles, 

 which might be applicable if we were legislating for time eternal and for 

 the whole creation, in a state of things which allows us but a very limited 

 sort of attention to futurity, and makes us the directors of a handful of 

 people in a corner, whose grand object is to shift poverty and incon- 

 veniences as far from their own shoulders as possible ? One moment, we 

 think good to define, and a very pleasant definition we have (and given 

 in italics too) of profit. — " Profit is, in every case, the result of more being 

 produced in a given period than is consumed in that period :" which, if it 

 were true, independent of the quality and character of the " production," 

 then a man might be said to make " profit " who bred snakes in his 

 garden, or increased the amount of small-pox in a country by privately in- 

 oculating people as he met them in the street. Directly after this, we are 

 orientally grand : " All that total cessation of the demand for a particular 

 class of commodities can do, is to force those who produce them to 

 employ their capital and industry in some other way," — which is a mere 

 trifle obviously ! " The shoemaker, if the demand for shoes were to cease, 

 would apply himself to the production of other commodities." To the 

 sweeping of chimnejs, for instance ? though that, tve should say, he 

 would find a less profitable employment. But what visionary nonsense — 

 what hallucination, — is it to talk of these changes, without even' naming 

 the misery — the ruin — the famine, and the bloodshed with which, in 

 practice, they must be attended ! 



The second branch of this inquiry upon absenteeism — to wit, the loss 

 which Ireland sustains in the failure of that moral influence and example 

 which might be expected from a resident proprietary — this branch of the 

 inquiry is disposed of very shortly ; but the writer felt, perhaps, — that 

 which his readers certainly will feel — that what he had said already ren- 

 dered any notice of it entirely unnecessary. The short argument (andra- 



