a large retail dealer who has extensive capital invested in his business is ruined with his ruined credit if detected in a fraudulent practice; but what harm does it do a small grocer, who has customers in a single street only, if frauds are proved against him?  If no one trusts him in Ancoats, he moves to Chorlton or Hulme, where no one knows him, and where he continues to defraud as before; while legal penalties attach to very few adulterations unless they involve revenue frauds.  Not in the quality alone, but in the quantity of his goods as well, is the English working-man defrauded.  The small dealers usually have false weights and measures, and an incredible number of convictions for such offences may be read in the police reports.  How universal this form of fraud is in the manufacturing districts, a couple of extracts from the Manchester Guardian may serve to show.  They cover only a short period, and, even here, I have not all the numbers at hand: 

Guardian, June 16, 1844, Rochdale Sessions.—­Four dealers fined five to ten shillings for using light weights.  Stockport Sessions.—­Two dealers fined one shilling, one of them having seven light weights and a false scale, and both having been warned.

Guardian, June 19, Rochdale Sessions.—­One dealer fined five, and two farmers ten shillings.

Guardian, June 22, Manchester Justices of the Peace.—­Nineteen dealers fined two shillings and sixpence to two pounds.

Guardian, June 26, Ashton Sessions.—­Fourteen dealers and farmers fined two shillings and sixpence to one pound.  Hyde Petty Sessions.—­Nine farmers and dealers condemned to pay costs and five shillings fines.

Guardian, July 9, Manchester—­Sixteen dealers condemned to pay costs and fines not exceeding ten shillings.

Guardian, July 13, Manchester.—­Nine dealers fined from two shillings and sixpence to twenty shillings.

Guardian, July 24, Rochdale.—­Four dealers fined ten to twenty shillings.

Guardian, July 27, Bolton.—­Twelve dealers and innkeepers condemned to pay costs.

Guardian, August 3, Bolton.—­Three dealers fined two shillings and sixpence, and five shillings.

Guardian, August 10, Bolton.—­One dealer fined five shillings.

And the same causes which make the working-class the chief sufferers from frauds in the quality of goods make them the usual victims of frauds in the question of quantity too.

The habitual food of the individual working-man naturally varies according to his wages.  The better paid workers, especially those in whose families every member is able to earn something, have good food as long as this state of things lasts; meat daily, and bacon and cheese for supper.  Where wages are less, meat is used only two or three times a week, and the proportion of bread and potatoes increases.  Descending gradually, we find the animal food reduced