“To the Retail Grocers of the United Kingdom.
“Gentlemen,—The time has arrived for the trade at once to make a move for the revision of tares on all raw sugars. Facts prove the evil of the present system to be greatly on the increase. We submit a case as under, and only one out of twenty. On the 30th August, 1858, we bought 3 hogsheads of Barbados, mark
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“We make a claim for £2. 1s. 3d.; we are told by the wholesale grocer there is no redress.
“There is another evil which the retail grocer has to contend with, that is, the mode of sampling raw sugars: the foots are excluded from the merchants’ samples. Facts will prove that in thousands of hogsheads of Barbados this season there is an average of 5 cwt. of foots in each; we have turned out some with 10 cwt., which are at least 5s. per cwt. less value than sample, and in these cases we are told again there is no redress.
“These two causes are bringing hundreds of hard-working men to ruin {123} and will bring hundreds more unless the trade take it up, and we implore them to unite in obtaining so important a revision.
“We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants,
“WALKER and STAINES.[6]
“Birmingham, October 19, 1858.”
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[6] The abuses described in this letter have now, we believe, been abolished.
A more subtle method of imposition remains to be added. It is the practice of sugar-refiners to put moist, crushed sugar into dried casks. During the time that elapses before one of these casks is opened by the retailer, the desiccated wood has taken up the excess of water from the sugar; which is thus brought again into good condition. When the retailer, finding that the cask weighs much more than was allowed as tare by the wholesale dealer, complains to him of this excess, the reply is—“Send it up to us, and we will dry it and weigh it, as is the custom of the trade.”
Without further detailing these malpractices, of which the above examples are perhaps the worst, we will advert only to one other point in the transactions of these large houses—the drawing-up of trade-circulars. It is the habit of many wholesale dealers to send round to their customers, periodic accounts of the past transactions, present condition, and prospects of the markets. Serving as checks on each other, as they do, these documents are prevented from swerving very widely from the truth. But it is scarcely to be expected that they should be quite honest. Those who issue them, being in most cases interested in the prices of the commodities referred to in their circulars, are swayed by their interests in the representations they make respecting the probabilities of the future. Far-seeing retailers are on their guard against this. A large provincial grocer, who thoroughly understands his business, said to us—“As a rule, I throw trade-circulars on the fire.” And that this estimate of their trustworthiness is not unwarranted, we gather from the expressions of those engaged in other businesses. From two leather-dealers, one in the country and one in London, we have heard the same complaint {124} against the circulars published by houses in their trade, that they are misleading. Not that they state untruths; but that they produce false impressions by leaving out facts which they should have stated.
In illustrating the morality of manufacturers, we shall confine ourselves to one class—those who work in silk. And it will be the most convenient method of arranging facts, to follow the silk through its various stages; from its state when imported, to its state when ready for the wearer.
Bundles of raw silk from abroad—not uncommonly weighted with rubbish, stones, or rouleaux of Chinese copper coin, to the loss of the buyer—are disposed of by auction. Purchases are made on behalf of the silk-dealers by “sworn brokers;” and the regulation is, that these sworn brokers shall confine themselves to their functions as agents. From a silk-manufacturer, however, we learn that they are currently understood to be themselves speculators in silk, either directly or by proxy; and that as thus personally interested in prices, they become faulty as agents. We give this, however, simply as a prevailing opinion, for the truth of which we do not vouch.
The silk bought by the London dealer, he sends into the manufacturing districts to be “thrown;” that is, to be made into thread fit for weaving. In the established form of bargain between the silk-dealer and the silk-throwster, we have a strange instance of an organized and recognized deception; which has seemingly grown out of a check on a previous deception. The throwing of silk is necessarily accompanied by some waste, from broken ends, knots, and fibres too weak to wind. This waste varies in different kinds of silk from 3 per cent. to 20 per cent.: the average being about 5 per cent. The per-centage of waste being thus variable, it is obvious that in the absence of restraint, a dishonest silk-throwster might abstract a portion of the silk; and, on returning the rest to the dealer, might plead {125} that the great diminution in weight had resulted from the large amount of loss in the process of throwing. Hence there has arisen a system, called “working on cost,” which requires the throwster to send back to the dealer the same weight of silk which he receives: the meaning of the phrase being, we presume, that whatever waste the throwster makes must be at his own cost. Now, as it is impossible to throw silk without some waste—at least 3 per cent., and ordinarily 5 per cent.—this arrangement necessitates a deception; if, indeed, that can be called a deception which is tacitly understood by all concerned. The silk has to be weighted. As much as is lost in throwing, has to be made up by some foreign substance introduced. Soap is largely used for this. In small quantity, soap is requisite to facilitate the running of the threads in the process of manufacture; and the quantity is readily increased. Sugar also is used. And by one means or other, the threads are made to absorb enough matter to produce the desired weight. To this system all silk-throwsters are obliged to succumb; and some of them carry it to a great extent, as a means of hiding either carelessness or something worse.
The next stage through which silk passes, is that of dyeing. Here, too, impositions have grown chronic and general. In times past, as we learn from a ribbon-manufacturer, the weighting by water was the chief dishonesty. Bundles returned from the dyer’s, if not manifestly damp, still, containing moisture enough to make up for a portion of the silk that had been kept back; and precautions had to be taken to escape losses thus entailed. Since then, however, there has arisen a method of deception which leaves this far behind—that of employing heavy dyes. The following details have been given us by a silk-throwster. It is now, he says, some five-and-thirty years since this method was commenced. Before that time silk lost a considerable part of its weight in the copper. The ultimate fibre of silk is coated, in issuing from the spinneret of the silk-worm, with {126} a film of varnish which is soluble in boiling water. In dyeing, therefore, this film, amounting to 25 per cent. of the entire weight of the silk, is dissolved off; and the silk is rendered that much lighter. So that originally, for every sixteen ounces of silk sent to the dyer’s, only twelve ounces were returned. Gradually, however, by the use of heavy dyes, this result has been reversed. The silk now gains in weight; and sometimes to a scarcely credible extent. According to the requirement, silk is sent back from the dyer’s of any weight, from twelve ounces to the pound up to forty ounces to the pound. The original pound of silk, instead of losing four ounces, as it naturally would, is actually, when certain black dyes are used, made to gain as much as twenty-four ounces! Instead of 25 per cent. lighter, it is returned 150 per cent. heavier—is weighted with 175 per cent. of foreign matter! Now as, during this stage of its manufacture, the transactions in silk are carried on by weight, it is manifest that in the introduction and development of this system, we have a long history of frauds. At present all in the trade are aware of it, and on their guard against it. Like other modes of adulteration, in becoming established and universal, it has ceased to be profitable to any one. But it still serves to indicate the morals of those concerned.
The thrown and dyed silk passes into the hands of the weaver; and here again we come upon dishonesties. Manufacturers of figured silks sin against their fellows by stealing their patterns. The laws which have been found necessary to prevent this species of piracy, show that it has been carried to a great extent. Even now it is not prevented. One who has himself suffered from it, tells us that manufacturers still get one another’s designs by bribing the workmen. In their dealings with “buyers,” too, some manufacturers resort to deceptions: perhaps tempted to do so by the desire to compensate themselves for the heavy tax paid in treating, etc. Goods which have already been seen {127} and declined by other buyers, are brought before a subsequent one with artfully-devised appearances of secrecy, accompanied by professions that these goods have been specially reserved for his inspection: a manœuvre by which an unwary man is sometimes betrayed. That the process of production has its delusions, scarcely needs saying. In the ribbon-trade, for example, there is a practice called “top-ending;” that is, making the first three yards good, and the rest (which is covered when rolled up) of bad or loose texture—80 “shutes” to the inch instead of 108. And then there comes the issuing of imitations made of inferior materials—textile adulterations as we may call them. This practice of debasement, not an occasional but an established one, is carried to a surprising extent, and with surprising rapidity. Some new fabric, first sold at 7s. 6d. per yard, is supplanted by successive counterfeits; until at the end of eighteen months a semblance of it is selling at 4s. 3d. per yard. Nay, still greater depreciations of quality and price take place—from 10s. down to 3s., and even 2s. per yard. Until at length the badness of these spurious fabrics becomes so conspicuous, that they are unsaleable; and there ensues a reaction, ending either in the reintroduction of the original fabric, or in the production of some novelty to supply its place.