354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Idaho passed a law at the last session of its legislature which estab- 

 lishes the customary standards and materially enlarges the powers and 

 duties of the state sealer of weights and measures who, by a former act, 

 is the dairy, food and sanitary inspector of the state. The present act 

 makes it mandatory for the state sealer to test and seal or condemn all 

 apparatus used in the state. Cities and municipalities are given the 

 power to appoint sealers and pass ordinances not in conflict with the laws 

 of the state. A large number of dry commodities for which legal weights 

 are specified, must be sold only by weight; berries and small fruits, when 

 sold in boxes, must be sold only in those containing a standard dry quart 

 or dry pint unless information that the boxes hold less than this amount 

 is given to the purchaser and a statement of the net contents is labeled 

 on the box ; milk and cream must be sold in standard size bottles ; pails 

 of lard must be labeled with the net weight ; prints of butter containing 

 less than 16 ounces must be labeled with the weight; and bread must be 

 sold by weight. 



Illinois passed a law which is lacking in scope and does not provide 

 any officials whose sole duty it is to enforce the law, but its execution 

 depends upon the Secretary of State who is ex-officio sealer of weights 

 and measures, and the county clerks of the several counties who are 

 county sealers of weights and measures ; the former being charged with 

 the care and custody of the state standards and the trying and proving 

 of the county and municipal standards, and the latter with the duty of 

 trying and proving all weights and measures, scales and beams within 

 their respective counties when requested so to do. Fees are provided for 

 the payment of services rendered in testing and sealing; and this is a very 

 undesirable feature of the law, as such a system is not conducive to the 

 attainment of the best results, and is generally believed by weights and 

 measures officials to be wrong in principle and unsatisfactory in practise. 

 The weights per bushel of a large number of commodities are fixed. 

 Section 17 of the law is worthy of commendable notice, since it gives 

 authority to weights and measures officials to seize and hold for use as 

 evidence in any suit any short measure or faulty or incorrect weighing or 

 measuring instrument or any commodity or article of merchandise 

 which is of less weight or measure than represented, and the sealer i3 

 not held liable to the owner of the property seized for damages caused 

 by such seizure where reasonable grounds existed for the action of the 

 official. While the law is incomplete in its provisions, in fact, is entirely 

 lacking in many which are indispensable to the attainment of the best 

 results in weights and measures work, inadequate in the machinery pro- 

 vided for its enforcement, and not in keeping in progressiveness with the 

 position of Illinois among the sister states of the Union, it is to be hoped 

 that the start thus made will expand, and that a competent law and 

 adequate force will soon be had. 



Indiana introduced a bill to amend the law passed in 1911, and, after 



