REPORT OF Tllii COM.MISSIONKR. 23 



and using his customers fairly, he finds that some time or other 

 a man opens up a store, — it may be a syndicate store or a cut 

 rate store— and this man is cutting prices, selUng goods lower 

 than he can sell them. He sends somebody down there to find 

 out what he is doing and he finds out that the man is giving 

 short weight. Apparently that man is prospering and is getting 

 all the trade away from the honest grocer. What the sealer of 

 weights and measures wants to do is to go down and make the 

 other fellow give full weight and measure and then he will find 

 that the man who w^ants to be honest will do the right thing. 

 The only way to meet this thing is to equip every house with a 

 set of scales and a set of measures, just a cheap scale and a 

 cheap set of measures, — not over two — and then when anything 

 IS bought for the house, simply weigh it on the scale or empty 

 it into the measure and you will find out right away whether you 

 are getting full weight and measure or not. When you do 

 this and find you have not received the full quantity, don't have 

 a controversy with the man of whom you bought it. He will 

 act injured and have some excuse. Simply call up the sealer 

 of weights and measures and tell him that you have got short 

 weight or short measure. If he goes down to the store the 

 dealer will not have any controversy with him, he will try to 

 ^quare it in some way. That is what every person should do, — 

 call up the sealer and tell him the circumstances and he will 

 see that justice is done. The sealers of weights and measures 

 are being paid for their services, and they are willing to earn 

 their salaries if the public will only co-operate. But it is im- 

 possible for the sealers of weights and measures to witness every 

 transaction that is going on and they only know these things, 

 or the great bulk of them, through complaints from the public. 

 H a citizen here should make a complaint to Mr. Nugent, that 

 would be the end of it as far as he was concerned. Mr. Nugent 

 very probably would not act on that complaint. He would 

 send his own man and get his own evidence and then prosecute 

 on what evidence he could secure. Tt would be bad economy 

 for the purchaser to give half a day to prosecute a man for a 

 few cent's short weight, but unless somebody prosecutes him he 

 is going to give that to everybody and it amounts to a good deal. 

 If a dealer gives a few ounces short weight, it amounts to but 

 little in any one case, but multiply that by three or four hundred 



