Thus, in the recent
examination by the House of Commons into the state of the coal
trade, it appears that five-sixths of the London public is
supplied by a class of middlemen who are called in the trade
Brass plate coal merchants: these consist principally of
merchants' clerks, gentlemen's servants, and others, who have no
wharfs of their own, but merely give their orders to some true
coal merchant, who sends in the coals from his wharf: the brass
plate coal merchants, of course, receiving a commission for his
agency.
209. In Italy this system is carried to a great extent
amongst the voituriers, or persons who undertake to convey
travellers. There are some possessed of greater fluency and a
more persuasive manner who frequent the inns where the English
resort, and who, as soon as they have made a bargain for the
conveyance of a traveller, go out amongst their countrymen and
procure some other voiturier to do the job for a considerably
smaller sum, themselves pocketing the difference. A short time
before the day of starting, the contractor appears before his
customer in great distress, regretting his inability to perform
the journey on account of the dangerous illness of a mother or
some relative, and requesting to have his cousin or brother
substituted for him.
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