If necessary, he hides it or feeds it out to his
animals. He often barters it away for wood, for a side of bacon or in
payment for a day's work. At night, he carts it off six leagues to a
neighboring district, where the local maximum is fixed at a higher
rate. He knows who, in his own vicinity, still has specie in his
pocket and he underhandedly supplies him with his stores. He
especially conceals his superabundance and, as formerly, pretends to
be poor and suffering. He is on good terms with the village
authorities, with the mayor and national agent who are as interested
as he is in evading the law, and, on a bribe being necessary, he gives
it. At last, he allows himself to be sued, and his property attached;
he goes to prison and tires the authorities out with his obstinacy.
Hence, from week to week, less flour and grain and fewer cattle come
to market, while meat becomes scarcer at the butcher's, and bread at
the baker's. - Having thus paralyzed the lesser organs of supply and
demand the Jacobins now have only to paralyze labor itself, the
skilled hands, the active and vigorous arms. This is simply done by
replacing the independent private workshop by the compulsory national
workshop in this way replacing piece-work by work by the day, and the
attentive, energetic workman who minds his business and expects to
earn money in return by inattentive apathic workmen pressed into a
poorly paid service but paid even when they botch the job or laze
about.
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