turning from war, wheeled suddenly to the right-about towards
Industry, charged as for an onset, and without difficulty carried every
position." But they brought to commerce more of the violence of military
life than the sentiment of honour, and treated unmercifully two classes
of individuals, viz. the workman and the consumer. Towards the latter
they behaved as the female shopkeepers ransomed the Cossacks in 1815.
They sold at false weight, false die, false measure. With respect to the
former, they applied to industry the great imperial principle--sacrifice
men to abridge warfare. Men were _pressed_ in town and country, and the
conscripts of labour were placed at the pace of the machine, and
required to be, like it--indefatigable. The successors of these men, the
present manufacturers, pay the penalty of their fathers' misdeeds. Their
reputation is gone in the market--they cannot get on. "Most of them
would be heartily glad to retire if they could; but they are engaged,
they must go on--_march! march!_" Such men are not likely to be
tender-hearted. They are unfeeling to their workmen, for the
money-lender is unfeeling to them. To live, the manufacturer must
borrow. To get back his interest he has recourse to the workmen, for the
consumer is on his guard. The former present themselves in crowds, and
are obtained at any price. But a glut in the market compels the
manufacturer to sell at a loss; the lowness of wages, which is death to
the workman, is no longer profitable to the master, and the consumer
alone gains by it. May not bondage and hatred be discerned in the
present condition of the French manufacturer?

We come to the _Tradesman_. "The tradesman is the tyrant of the
manufacturer. He pays him back all the annoyance and vexations of the
purchaser." The purchaser of to-day wishes to buy for nothing: he
requires two things, a showy article and the lowest price. The tradesman
must deceive or perish. His life is made up of two warfares--one of
cheating and cunning against the purchaser; the other of vexations and
unreasonableness against the manufacturer. We have said that no one can
talk more wisely than the author of _The People_ when he is so disposed.
The picture of the tradesman is drawn with a masterly hand. The original
may be found here as well as in France, and is, in truth, the creation
of the unwholesome time in which we live rather than of any particular
city or state.

"The repugnance for industry exhibi