Honesty in Trade: Sins of Commerce Condemned
EVIDENTLY the Christian has seen something of the world, or it never could have found out so many sins that need to be preached against as it condenses in a few paragraphs. “We want a religion,” it says, “that banishes small measures from the counters, small baskets from the stalls, sand from the sugar, chicory from coffee, alum from the bread, and water from the milk-cans. The religion that is to save the world will not put all the big strawberries at the top, and all the little ones at the bottom. It will not make one-half a pair of shoes of good leather, so that the first shall redound to the maker’s credit, and the second to his cash. It will not put Jouvin’s stamp on Jenkin’s kid gloves; or make Paris bonnets in the back-room of a Boston millinery shop; nor all-wool delaines and all linen handkerchiefs be amalgamated with clandestine cotton; nor coats made of old rags pressed together be sold to the unsuspecting public for real broadcloth. It does not put bricks at five dollars a thousand into chimneys it contracts to build with seven-dollar material; nor smuggle white pine into floors that have paid for hard pine; nor leave yawning cracks in closets where boards ought to join; nor make window blinds of slats that cannot stand the wind, and paint that cannot stand the sun, and fastenings that may be looked at, but on no account touched. The religion that is going to sanctify the world pays its debts. It does not consider that forty cents returned from one hundred cents given is according to the gospel, though it may be according to law. It looks on a man who has failed in trade, and who continues to live in luxury, as a thief.”