Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/345

Rh must all be made through the medium of barter; and he is obliged to waste his time in arranging an exchange, in which the goods which he has been compelled to accept for his labour are invariably taken at a lower price than that at which his master charged them to him. The father of a family perhaps, writhing under the agonies of the toothache, is obliged to make his hasty bargain with the village surgeon, before he will remove the cause of his pain; or the disconsolate mother is compelled to sacrifice her depreciated goods in exchange for the last receptacle of her departed offspring. The subjoined evidence from the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Framework-Knitters' Petitions, shows that these are not exaggerated statements.