and, if enforced, a reasonable safeguard against "a corner in corn." The severity of the penalty imposed in this case by the law of the land, is remarkable, especially as the Athenian law seldom imposed the death-penalty at all; banishment, disfranchisement, etc., being preferred as potent purifiers of the body-politic. If the evil was driven out of the state, the state was the better for it. The control of such a small nation by a "ring," guild or corporation of tradesmen was easy, by virtue of its narrow boundaries, and, for that reason, heavier penalty and more rigorous control is imperative. The easier the violation, the greater is the temptation and consequent danger to the commonwealth. A twenty-nine million dollar fine would have been impossible, but the death-penalty was a more direct and persuasive inducement to respect for the public weal; and though the risk was still run by greedy speculators, as our speech informs us, the law, made by the people, for the protection of the people, was enforced by a jury of the people, though they must in the discharge of their duty send the guilty to the fatal draught of hemlock.
A special board of ten corn-commissioners, elected annually by lot, had charge of the enforcement of the above law, under which our senator prosecutes the "corn-ring." It was the duty of the board to see that the unground grain was for sale in the market at a fair price; that the millers sold the meal at a price proportionate to that of the corn; that the bakers sold bread at a price proportionate to the price of wheat and made their loaves of bread of a weight fixed by the corn-officials.[1] These officers were also required to keep an account of all importations of grain.[2]
The grain dealers or retailers were the middlemen between the people and the great wholesalers or importers, and we may trust them to evade the law by secret understanding with the importers in regard to buying in bulk; by combining with each other to buy low, hold and sell high; by raising the price by circulation of news of war, storm, wreck, etc., as we learn from the orations of Demosthenes and Lysias. Such are the legal principles, laws and procedure underlying the case which our senator brings in his prosecution of the Athenian "corn-ring" for illegal speculation.
The senate, in such cases, ordinarily chose a public prosecutor to defend the interests of the state. Our senator may have been glad to assume that position as a willing choice, as he intimates, to clear himself of the suspicion of being "in with the King."
The speech itself is brief and logical, clearly stated and forcibly argued, and sticks closely to the point at issue—a proceeding that did not always obtain in the Greek law suit, though that blemish is not entirely unheard of in our modern courts, at least by inference, which
