sellers of an article, when the article does not happen to be all in the
hands of one person, or one body of persons. But combinations are of
various sorts; there are express combinations entered into by people
having the same interest for a particular purpose. Those are done by a
sort of an agreement, when the interest of the individual and of the
body are the same. Such combinations are generally effectual, {129}
but unlawful. There are combinations not less effectual, that arise
merely from circulating intelligence of prices, and certain
circumstances on which prices are known to depend, amongst all
those concerned, who immediately know how to act in unison.--This
is not unlawful.

An elegant historian has said that there was a time when the sovereign
pontiff, like the leader of a band of musicians, could regulate all the
clergy in Europe, so that the same tones should proceed from all the
pulpits on the same day. The list of prices, at a great corn-market, has
the same effect on the minds of all the sellers within a certain distance.
Intelligence now flies so swift that there is no interval of uncertainty;
the whole of the dealers know how to act, according to circumstances,
and they are all led to act nearly as if they were in one single body.
Like gamesters, who have won a great deal, rather than hasten to sell,
even when they fear that prices may fall, they keep back their stock,
and risk to lose something of what they have gained, by continuing to
speculate on the agreeable and winning chance by which they have
already profited.

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{129} There are sometimes combinations which it is the interest of a
whole body to preserve, but of each individual to break, if he can with
impunity; such generally soon fall to the ground.