Espapia Palladino is dead, and of course the usual amount of nonsense is being written about her. The woman certainly had some telekinetic power, and she certainly pieced it out with humbug, as is generally done when the power happens to exist in a low order of person. And as most persons are of a low order, the power is so pieced out in most cases. The same is of course true regarding telepsychic power.
But that behind the frauds and mistakes there is something genuine yet to be accounted for, is doubted by hardly anybody who knows anything about the subject. If writing about it, and all other subjects, could only be restricted to those who know something about them, how much better off we should all be!
And if dishonesty were only restricted to the inferior type of person! One of the committee who made out Palladino an unmitigated fraud, told us that he signed the report with mental reservations, and that he passed his hands under the table which she held suspended by her finger-tips on top of it, and found it absolutely disconnected with the floor!
Maximum Price-fixing in Ancient Rome
“Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.” The prototype of the aeroplane is found in the myth of Daedalus’ wings; the possibilities of the submarine—some of them—are illustrated in Lucian’s story of the sea monster; and maximum prices, in sober Roman history.
The Emperor Diocletian, at the beginning of the fourth century, made a serious effort to lower the high cost of living, by law. He was apparently one of that school of amateur economists which holds that the business man’s greed is the root of the evil. In his opinion there were any number of people who were expert in the art of running up the rates and charging the poor ultimate consumer, whether civilian or soldier, all that the traffic would bear. And his eye was on them. A part of the preface to the edict which was to abolish all the difficulties at one stroke, reads thus:
Who is so dull of heart that he does not know that on merchandise prices have become more than exorbitant, and that unbridled greed can not be mitigated by abundance of supplies or rich harvests? And so to the greed of those who, though men of the greatest wealth so that they could abundantly supply even nations, still seek private gain. To their greed, O people of our provinces, our care for common humanity urges us to put an end. Who does not know that, wherever the common safety of all demands that our armies be led, there the prices of merchandise are forced up, not four times or eight times, but without limit?
A system of maximum retail prices was to be the cure-all:
We have decided not to determine exact prices for commodities: for it does not seem just to do this when at times many provinces glory in the good fortune of low prices; but we have decided to establish a maximum of prices, so that when there is any scarcity greed may be checked.
If the emperor could have looked down the ages to the year 1918, he would have found that a maximum price of ten cents for sugar is very likely to become the regular price everywhere. He did not know this; but that his law would only be effective if supported by a penalty for disobedience, he knew right well. He decided on a penalty—a penalty which would appear adequate, probably even to the thorough-going Germans: