admit of a competition in
labor, advantage is taken of the eager demand for work, and prices
reduced to the lowest possible standard. In the eager scramble for
monopolizing more than a just share of custom, or to increase the
amount of sales by the temptation of extremely moderate rates, the
prices of goods are put down to the lowest scale they will bear. If,
in doing this, the dealer was content with a profit reduced in some
proportion to the increase of his sales, no one would have a right
to complain. He would be free to sell his goods at cost, or even
below cost, if that suited his fancy. Instead of this, however, the
profits on his articles are often the same that they were when
prices were ten or fifteen per cent. higher, and he reaps the
advantage of a greatly increased sale, consequent upon the more
moderate rates at which he can sell. The evil lies in his cutting
down his operatives' wages; in taking off of them, while they make
no party to his voluntary reduction of prices, the precise amount
that he throws in to his customer as a temptation to buy more
freely. But to the promised dialogue--

"Money don't come in hand-over-fist, as it ought to come," remarked
Grasp, of the flourishing firm of Grasp & Co., Merchant Tailors, of
Boston, to the junior partner of the establishment. "The nimble
sixpence is better than the slow shilling, you know. We must make
our shears eat up cloth a little faster, or we sha'n't clear ten
thousand dollars this year by one-third of the sum."

"Although that would be a pretty decent business these times."

"I don't call any business a decent one that can be bettered,"
replied Grasp, contemptuously.

"But can ours be bettered?"

"Certainly!"

"How?"

"By selling more goods."

"How are we to do that?"

"By putting down the prices, and then making a confounded noise
about it. Do you understand?"

"I do. But our prices are very low now."

"True. But we may reduce them still further, and, by so doing,
increase our sales to an extent that will make our business net us
beyond the present income quite handsomely. But, to do this, we must
cut down the prices now paid for making up our clothes. In this way,
we shall be able to greatly increase our sales, with but a slight
reduction upon our present rates of profit."

"But will our workmen stand it? Our needlewomen, particularly, work
very low now."

"They'll have to stand it!" replied Grasp; "most of them are glad to
get wo