eption of their style and contents may be had from one or two
extracts. In explaining the situation which confronts the world, the
Emperor writes: "For, if the raging avarice ... which, without regard for
mankind, increases and develops by leaps and bounds, we will not say from
year to year, month to month, or day to day, but almost from hour to hour,
and even from minute to minute, could be held in check by some regard for
moderation, or if the welfare of the people could calmly tolerate this mad
license from which, in a situation like this, it suffers in the worst
possible fashion from day to day, some ground would appear, perhaps, for
concealing the truth and saying nothing; ... but inasmuch as there is
only seen a mad desire without control, to pay no heed to the needs of the
many, ... it seems good to us, as we look into the future, to us who are
the fathers of the people, that justice intervene to settle matters
impartially, in order that that which, long hoped for, humanity itself
could not bring about may be secured for the common government of all by
the remedies which our care affords.... Who is of so hardened a heart and
so untouched by a feeling for humanity that he can be unaware, nay that he
has not noticed, that in the sale of wares which are exchanged in the
market, or dealt with in the daily business of the cities, an exorbitant
tendency in prices has spread to such an extent that the unbridled desire
of plundering is held in check neither by abundance nor by seasons of
plenty!"

If we did not know that this was found on tablets sixteen centuries old,
we might think that we were reading a newspaper diatribe against the
cold-storage plant or the beef trust. What the Emperor has decided to do
to remedy the situation he sets forth toward the end of the introduction.
He says: "It is our pleasure, therefore, that those prices which the
subjoined written summary specifies, be held in observance throughout all
our domain, that all may know that license to go above the same has been
cut off.... It is our pleasure (also) that if any man shall have boldly
come into conflict with this formal statute, he shall put his life in
peril.... In the same peril also shall he be placed who, drawn along by
avarice in his desire to buy, shall have conspired against these statutes.
Nor shall he be esteemed innocent of the same crime who, having articles
necessary for daily life and use, shall have decided hereafter that they
ca