CHAPTER VIII: ON THE STATE OF CRAFTSMEN AND WORKERS

1081. • Craftsmen and workers must be carefully examined by the confessor: for generally in Confession they are silent about the injustices and sins proper to their condition.

I. In general they are unjust by selling or leasing their works at an unjust price; by not manifesting occult defects of their works according to the things said concerning sale; by wasting time through culpable negligence; by turning other workers away from labor; by executing the work badly, whether by excessive haste, or by omission of necessary things, etc.

II. But in particular the following chiefly are unjust:

1° Goldsmiths and silversmiths who adulterate gold and silver, pour lead among the empty spaces, buy diamonds or even below their just lowest value from the ignorant, or sell fabricated or artificial ones as natural.

2° Clothmakers and wool-workers who mix wool of lesser price with good wool, and sell it for as much as if the whole matter were of the same quality; who weave the beginning and end of a roll of cloth from much better wool; who use painted colors; who, deceived in buying cloths, likewise deceive others by selling.

3° Millers who change the grains, or mix with them extraneous things of almost no value, as beans, for increasing the weight and mass; who retain for salary something from the wheat or flour beyond the practice of the fearful.

4° Bakers who bake badly; who maliciously mix flour from rye, barley, beans, etc., with wheaten flour; who fraudulently diminish the weight.

5° Butchers who sell corrupted meats, or hand over a worse quality for a better.

6° Tailors and shoemakers who cut badly; who use cloth or leather corrupted or burnt; who retain part of the cloth handed over to themselves, pretending that they applied the whole in making the work.

7° Makers of hats who sell hats newly blocked or dyed as new, or as if they had existed in the shop for a longer time.

8° Printers who print copies in a greater number than was agreed, and retain these for themselves; who make adulterous editions against the right of one having a privilege; who have unskilled correctors; who do not apply paper of the same quality as they promised in the program, etc. ... - See St. Alphonsus.¹