every
day to the other two. As there is no witchcraft in the making of
bread, it might be as well for the inhabitants of each town to be
supplied by the bakers of their own place exclusively, and then the
expense of the carriage would be saved. Such, however, is the keenness
of competition in the case, that each baker strives to get supporters
in the neighbouring towns, and willingly pays for van, horse, and
driver in order to retain their custom. We presume each van goes
thirty miles a day, and that there is not much less than 2000 miles of
this unprofitable travelling weekly in connection with the three
towns.

Any one who has a sincere respect for the principle of untrammelled
industry, must lament to see these its abuses or drawbacks. But our
commercial world is full of such anomalies. The cause is readily
traced in the excessive number of persons engaged in the various
trades. Not many years ago, the number of bakers in a town known to
us, of the same size as one of those above referred to, was fourteen,
while everybody acknowledged that four might have sufficed. In such
circumstances, it is not wonderful that expedients like that of the
van are resorted to, notwithstanding that it can only diminish the
aggregate of profit derived by an already starving trade.

Few persons who walk along a street of nicely-decorated and apparently
well-stocked shops, have the slightest conception of the hollowness of
many of the appearances. The reality has been tested in part by the
income-tax inquisition, which shews a surprising number of
respectable-looking shops not reaching that degree of profit which
brings the owner within the scope of the exaction. It may be that some
men who are liable, contrive to make themselves appear as not so; but
this cannot be to such an extent as greatly to affect the general
fact. In the assessing of the tax, no result comes out oftener than
one of this kind: Receipts for the year, L.2200; estimated profit at
15 per cent., L.330; deductions for rent of shop, taxes, shopmen's
wages, and bad debts, L.193; leaving, as net profit, L.137. The
commissioners are left to wonder how the trader can support his family
in a decent manner upon so small a return, till they reflect that
possibly a son brings in a little as a shopman, or a daughter as a
day-governess; or that possibly an old female relative lives with the
family, and throws her little income into the general stock. It is,
after all, a fact c