e. 'I do as I agree,'
is often the best excuse such men can make, when reasoned with on the
injustice of their conduct, without deciding the question, whether
their agreement is founded on a desire to do right.

2. Others _misrepresent the market price_. This is done in various
ways. They heard somebody say the price in market was so or so; or such
a one bought at such or such a price, or another sold at such a price:
all of which prices, purchases, and sales are _known positively_ to be
different from those which generally prevail. Many contrive to satisfy
their consciences in this way, who would by no means venture at once
upon plain and palpable lying.

3. The selling of goods or property which is _unsound and defective_,
under direct professions that it is sound and good, is another variety
of this species of fraud. It is sometimes done by direct lying, and
sometimes by indefinite and hypocritical insinuations. Agents, and
retailers often assert their wares to be good, because those of whom
they have received them _declare_ them to be such. These declarations
are often believed, because the seller appears or professes to believe
them; while in truth, he may not give them the least credit.

One of the grossest impositions of this kind--common as it is--is
practised upon the public in advertising and selling nostrums as safe
and valuable medicines. These are ushered into newspapers with a long
train of pompous declarations, almost always false, and _always_
delusive. The silly purchaser buys and uses the medicine chiefly or
solely because it is sold by a respectable man, under the sanction of
advertisements to which that respectable man lends his countenance.
Were good men to decline this wretched employment, the medicines would
probably soon fall into absolute discredit; and health and limbs and
life would, in many instances, be preserved from unnecessary
destruction.

4. Another species of fraud consists in _concealing the defects_ of
what we sell. This is the general art and villany of that class of men,
commonly called _jockeys_; a class which, in reality, embraces some who
would startle at the thought of being such;--and whole multitudes who
would receive the appellation with disdain.

The common subterfuge of the jockey is, that he gives no false
accounts; that the purchaser has eyes of his own, and must judge of the
goods for himself. No defence can be more lame and wretched; and hardly
any more impudent.