The great majority think that they can never have enough, and the consequence is that retail trade has become a reproach.

Whereas, however ludicrous the idea may seem, if noble men and noble women could be induced to open a shop, and to trade upon incorruptible principles, then the aspect of things would change, and retail traders would be regarded as nursing fathers and mothers.

In our own day the trader goes and settles in distant places, and receives the weary traveller hospitably at first, but in the end treats him as an enemy and a captive, whom he only liberates for an enormous ransom.

This is what has brought retail trade into disrepute, and against this the legislator ought to provide.

Men have said of old, that to fight against two opponents is hard; and the two opponents of whom I am thinking are wealth and poverty--the one corrupting men by luxury; the other, through misery, depriving them of the sense of shame.