SOME OLD TRADE TRICKS.

Manawatu Herald, 14 July 1896, Page 4

SOME OLD TRADE TRICKS.

Bow They Were Punished Five or Sis Hundred Tears Ago. Cheating in trade is no new thing. It Was practiced iv tho fourteenth century as v/ell as in the nineteenth. Our town records contain many cases of summary jurisdiction in matters affecting the price, woight and quality of food, clothing arid other things. I cull a few from the archives of the city of London. In 1848 proceedings were taken against a batcher for selling putrid meat. Three reasons were alleged against this conduct at his trial before the mayor and aldermen. It was deceitful and dishonest ; dangerous to the public health ; it brought scandal and disgrace upon the mayor, corporation, and all tho inhabitants of the city that a Londoner should behave so. After the investigation he was found guilty, and condemned to bo taken, with his bad meat carried in front of him, to the pillory in Cornhill, and while he stood therein the carrion he had tried to sell was burned tinder his nose. It is well known that the pillory was an instrument in which the culprit Was fixed, incapable of movement, exposed to the contempt of the people. The offense of the culprit waa always publicly proclaimed, and, according to tho views of the spectators, the punishment might be severe or otherwise. If they disliked the offense of the offender, their contempt would take the proverbial and forcible form of rotten eggs and dead cats, and the trader would make a closer acquaintance with his own wares, both raw and cooked, than ho might find pleasant. A publican, convicted of soiling un sound and unwholesome red wine, was sentenced to drink a draft of the same stuff which he sold to the common people, the remainder being poured on his head, and compelled to forswear the calling of a vintner in the city of London forever, unless he could obtain the favor of the king. A note on tho record states that he was readmitted five years later. About the same time we find a woman charged with selling ale in a short measure quart pot, the bottom of which she had thickened with pitch and covered with rosemary, to. look like bush in the sight of her customers. It was a common practice to put some sort of evergreen leaves in the bottom of tankards — hence the proverb, "Good wine needs no bush. " Her sentence was to stand in the "thew," or female pillory, with half of the pot attached to it. As far as possible, the cause of the offense was always exhibited along with the person punished. . Severe punishment was meted out for endeavoring to raise the standard market price of corn and other articles. In 1847 a merchant was imprisoned for 40 days for enhancing the price of his own property. He secretly employed a man to bring certain of bis own (the merchant's) wheat to the market, whereupon he bought his own at twopence more per bushel than the market price, of course taking care to make the same well known, forgetting, however, to state what he knew about the seller.- -- -.. r