il-:
„11
m ill
The principal complaint made against
the Genevese is, that the shopkeepers
charge more for their goods to the English,
than they do to their own countrymen ;
but I believe this practice o f charging th e
English an extra price, is less frequent in
Geneva than in most other towns on the
continent, and is -far from being general.
Indeed, I am well persuaded that the shopkeepers
in Geneva are to the full as honest
as those of London.* Should an Englishman,
however, soon after his arrival, fall
in company with any of his young coun-
In London there is an evil great in extent and
most pernicious in its consequences, which is at present
little known in Geneva. I allude to the prevailing practice
of the London tradesmen bribing the servants of the
families they serve, either by allowing them a discount
on all the money laid out, or by giving them large presents.
Now this money, which is put into the pockets
of the servants without the knowledge of their masters,
the latter are compelled to repay, perhaps tenfold, to the
tradesman in some form or other, either in extra price
inferior quality, or diminished quantity, which the servants
are of course expected not to notice. Thus a system
of fraud, that escapes the vigilance of the law,' is
deeply undermining the integrity of the lower classes
Few persons, I believe, who have not enquired into the
subject, have any idea of the vast extent and magnitude
ol this evil in London.
STATE OF MORALS. 73
try men who have been some time resident
at Geneva, they may probably endeavour
to prejudice him against the Genevese, but
he must listen to their accounts with
great caution. Many of these young men
come to Geneva with but little experience
of the real state o f society in England or
elsewhere, and hence they are too apt to
pass judgment on a whole people, for the
faults they have discovered in one or two
individuals.
Thus having found, in some instances,
that the shopkeepers have charged an extra
price for their articles, they will describe
them all as dishonest. Perhaps the same
person who would highly blame a Genevese
hatter for asking him a crown more
for his hat than he had done to a fellow
citizen, would glory in selling a horse for
one hundred guineas, either to a countryman
or a foreigner, though he really knew
it was not worth fifty ; and while he was
pocketing the money, and thinking himself
a very clever, and a very honest man, he
might possibly look at his hat, and bestow
some hearty curses on that confounded rogue
o f a Genevese, as he would call him, who
had cheated him of a crown.