1{J3].] Cholera Speciilalions. C61 



come next, and the sliroiul-makers begin to talk of a strike, while the 

 grave-diggers exult in the belief that spades will soon be trumps." 



Every oil, essence, or root, which could be conceived to be of any 

 use in the disease, has been instantly raised fifty, a hundred, two hun- 

 dred, per cent., and this not from any kind of new difficulty in getting 

 them from abroad, but on the stocks in hand, and merely in consequence 

 of the supposed necessity of having them. Trade will, we know, pro- 

 nounce this all fair, and in the way of trade. Yet this is the direct reverse 

 of honesty. The man who would have been satisfied to sell his lauda- 

 num or his cajeput a month ago at a shilling an ounce, should be 

 satisfied to sell it at a shilling an ounce still. But public necessity is 

 ready to give ten shillings, rather than not have it ; and the large 

 holder of the commodity, taking advantage of the public necessity, will 

 not suffer an ounce to leave his hands under the fullest price which he 

 can extort, for extort is the true word, from public necessity. Say 

 what trade will of this, the principle is rank dishonestJ^ The true 

 principle of fair trade is to be content with a fair profit. But the profit 

 that was fair a month ago, must be fair still. We have no hesitation in 

 pronouncing the man who demands an exorbitant profit, in any instance, 

 a swindler and an extortioner ; and especially in a case of life and death. 

 If the cholera should actually come among us in the fatal shape in 

 which it has appeared on the continent, and if those oils and extracts 

 should be actually necessary for the preservation of life, how many of 

 the humbler orders must be prevented from availing themselves of 

 those remedies, by the scandalous avarice of the dealers. If cajeput, 

 for instance, be raised from ten pence to twenty shillings an ounce, 

 merely because all the cajeput in the country happens to be in the 

 hands of one dealer, and he thus has the means of demanding what he 

 pleases, is not such an u.se of his commodity, a scandalous abuse of his 

 power, and is not such a man guilty of every death that occurs from his 

 withholding the remedy, for the sake of making an enormous profit ? 

 Or would not such a man be equally justified in raising the price of a 

 loaf to fifty pounds, and seeing half the population perish at his feet 

 for want, provided he could secure the monopoly of flour, and leave 

 the people no alternative between giving him his full demand and 

 famine .'' All reason decries monopoly, because monopoly puts it in the 

 power of a bad and avaricious mind to be unjust. We are persuaded 

 that the common principle of trade, that of taking advantage of all 

 occasions to secure the highest possiljle profit, is among the first causes, 

 not of the prosperity, but of the decline of trade. We are equally per- 

 suaded that if any man, engaged in traffic, even of the humblest order, 

 were to lay down for himself tlie determination of requiring no more 

 than his original established profit, let tlio change of circumstances be 

 however favourable to extortion, he would eventually be a much more 

 successful gainer than the extortioner. True, he might see others 

 making fifty per cent for the time, while he was making but ten, but 

 the time does not continue long for such extravagant profits, and when 

 the time was past, the mere character of the honest trader would be a 

 fortune to him. Tlie man would never want custom who was found 

 firm to his feelings of lionest dealing, and by the time the dashing mo- 

 nopolist was in tlie gazette, the victim of some other s])eculation — for the 

 whole history of these things is the history of a gamester — the honest 

 dealer would be at the head of Iiis trade, honoured too and cstecmec!. 



