ht into
Billingsgate market above a certain quantity, which led Ruskin to cry
out furiously that the real prices of the world were regulated by
Rascals, while the fools are bleating their folly of Supply and
Demand. One may guess to-day that most of the proceedings in the ports
of Boston, New York, or Gloucester would be highly criminal under this
ancient law. So, in the Statute of Dogger (this ancient word meaning
the ships that carry fish for salting to Blakeney, Cromer, and other
ports in the east of England), the price of dogger fish is settled at
the beginning of the day and must be sold at such price "openly, and
not by covin, or privily," nor can fish be bought for resale, but must
be sold within the bounds of the market. To-day there is not a quart
of milk that goes into Boston that is not forestalled, nor possibly
a fish that is not sold at sea or even before its capture; and
the number of middlemen is many--when, indeed, they all are not
consolidated into a trust. The destruction, directly or by cold
storage, of milk, fish, eggs, or other food in order solely to
maintain the price should to-day be a misdemeanor; and these early
doctrines of forestalling and restraining trade should be to-day more
intelligently applied by our judges--or by the legislatures, if our
lawyers have forgotten them--for they all are "highly criminal at the
common law."

In the reign of Edward III appears one of many cruel ordinances for
Ireland. Although the Roman Church was then, of course, universal, the
statute is addressed to "the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors and
our Officers both great and small of our land of Ireland," and
recites that "through default of good government and the neglect
and carelessness of the royal officers there [this is probably true
enough] our land of Ireland and the Clergy and People thereof have
been manifoldly disturbed and grieved; and the Marches of said Land
situate near the Enemy, laid waste by Hostile Invasions, the Marches
being slain and plundered and their Dwellings horribly burnt." The
Marchers were, of course, mainly of English descent; and one notes
that the Irish are frankly termed the Enemy. As a method of meeting
this evil, the Saxon intelligence of the day could find no better
remedy than to lay it to "marriages and divers other Ties and the
nursing of Infant Children among the English and the Irish, and
Forewarnings and Espyals made on both Sides by the Occasions
aforesaid," and