how to get them.  The real point is that they are less able to detect false cheapness than they used to be.  Not merely do they no longer rely upon a known and trusted retailer to protect them from the deceits of the manufacturer, but the facilities for deception are continually increasing.  The greater complexity of trade, the larger variety of commodities, the increased specialization in production and distribution, the growth of “a science of adulteration” have immensely increased the advantage which the professional salesman possesses over the amateur customer.  Hence the growth of goods meant not for use but for sale—­jerry-built houses, adulterated food, sham cloth and leather, botched work of every sort, designed merely to pass muster in a hurried act of sale.  To such a degree of refinement have the arts of deception been carried that the customer is liable to be tricked and duped at every turn.  It is not that he foolishly prefers to buy a bad article at a low price, but that he cannot rely upon his judgment to discriminate good from bad quality; he therefore prefers to pay a low price because he has no guarantee that by paying more he will get a better article.  It is this fact, and not a mania for cheapness, which explains the flooding of the market with bad qualities of wares.  This effectual demand for bad workmanship on the part of the consuming public is no doubt directly responsible for many of the worst phases of “sweating.”  Slop clothes and cheap boots are turned out in large quantities by workers who have no claim to be called tailors or shoemakers.  A few weeks’ practice suffices to furnish the quantum of clumsy skill or deceit required for this work.  That is to say, the whole field of unskilled labour is a recruiting-ground for the “sweater” or small employer in these and other clothing trades.  If the public insisted on buying good articles, and paid the price requisite for their production, these “sweating” trades would be impossible.  But before we saddle the consuming public with the blame, we must bear in mind the following extenuating circumstances.

Sec. 10.  What the Purchaser can do.—­The payment of a higher price is no guarantee that the workers who produce the goods are not “sweated.”  If I am competent to discriminate well-made goods from badly-made goods, I shall find it to my interest to abstain from purchasing the latter, and shall be likewise doing what I can to discourage “sweating.”  But by merely paying a higher price for goods of the same quality as those which I could buy at a lower price, I may be only putting a larger profit in the hands of the employers of this low-skilled labour, and am certainly doing nothing to decrease that demand for badly-made goods which appears to be the root of the evil.  The purchaser who wishes to discourage sweating should look first to the quality of the goods he buys, rather than to the price.  Skilled labour is seldom sweated to the same degree as unskilled labour, and a high class of workmanship will generally