TRICKS OF TRADE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 126, 23 November 1918, Page 5

TRICKS OF TRADE

MEAN FORMS OF PETTY

LARCENY.

Unmistakably we are getting. clom to the golden age (remarks a Seattle paper) when the law takes cognisance of the minor meannesses of mankind, and scowls on customs so ancient as packing the larger berries and fruits on the top of the box and lifting the bottom of the box to an elevation half way to the top. As a practical fraud, these tricks of the trade have lost all value; in fact, they lost it years ago, and it is more than likely that they are continued more as a matter of habit than of profit. Certainly, no one buys a box of berries with any faith that the lower layer* of fruit are equal in • size to the upper. Occasionally that happens, and the purchaser has a, pleasant and almost incredible surprise. The practice is none the lera irritating, however, because the housewife knows •what she is getting. She is not at all astonished to find a Jot of tcrubby fruit in, the bottom of the- box, but she is just as indignant as if she did not expect it. Lifting the bottom of the box is a trade cheat.of ancient respectability.. It i« not confined to boxes, but is found in bottles. The gentlemen who sell goods in bottles have- exercised ah ingenuity worthy of a better cause in the construction of a bottle that looks larger than it really is. Those fine old merchants of a bygone day, who used to sell whisky, by th© bottle, never: hesitated to sell a fifth of a gallon for a quart, and so generally known was that scheme that many manufacturers advertised a "full" quart. These little tricks of the trade, however, are seldom to be charged to the person who hands the package to the consumer. The retailer is not infrequently subjected to equivalent trad© customs, and thei honest producer is not always above profiting from the advantages that come to him by reason of his position in the chain of transactions. There is even a defence of putting the. good berries on the top, which holds that in this way everybody gets a share of the good berries, whereas under the more honest system some few would get the better, berries, while the majority would get the poorer, unrelieved by a layer of good. Of course, when a producer or a dealer mismarks his package, he is engaging in a particularly mean form of petty larceny, for which there can be no justification, especially in these times when the question of food is for many reduced almost to a matter of ounces. In all probability it will be a long time before democracy ia made so safe that ono doesn't have to look carefully for the hottom of tha box, but we are, for all thaX, making a step in the right direction when we; begin to officially frown on these oM deceptions.