CHAPTER IV.
The Uncertainty of the Act.
The problem that is now to be dealt with is whether, there being a market price determined through the "higgling of the market," there is the requisite data available to business men upon which, beyond any reasonable doubt, they can, as business men, determine just what deviation from such market price they should make to satisfy any judge and any jury that they had not acted criminally. In other words, to ascertain what any chance twelve men might think a proper variance from the "Market Price"—which is, of course, the recorded judgment of all the rest of the world.
To avoid confusion, it must be borne in mind that the "market price" is an ever-varying one, being determined only be a free market, where each one is entitled, as a freeman, to offer what he pleases or to sell on terms satisfactory to himself. In other words, that it is the price constantly and ever being fixed, and thus meeting every variation and contingency necessary to be faced by men exercising the freedom of a democracy, instead of the bondage of communistic government. Grave error is made in assuming that it is ever a fixed price. It is every varying to meet all influences, and is simply the last price made in a free market. It is in reality, the price of freedom!
Another preliminary consideration must not be lost sight of, and it is that, as every one wants to buy at the lowest prices, and sell at the highest, there is always a perplexing political agitation going on to se-
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