REPORT DEPUTY STATE SEALER OF WEIGHTS & MEASURES. I43 



structed, scales that were conducive to fraud. They were scales 

 known as the family type of scales, ^^'e have ridden the city 

 of that variety of false scales. We could not seize scales except 

 for evidence, but the law gives us a right to seize for evidence. 

 By moral suasion we have gained the results which I speak of. 



One of the most important things is the reweighing of coal in 

 transit. Our law provides that the driver of the team must 

 have a sworn certificate of weight and we have a right to inter- 

 cept that team wherever we see it, call for the certificate of 

 weight from a sworn weigher and take a copy; then if we 

 desire, order him to the first public scale or the most convenient 

 scale that has been sealed by our department and reweigh his 

 load, after which he returns to the same scale and we get the 

 tare; then we know whether his weights are correct or other- 

 wise. In those coal reweighings our activity, together with the 

 publicity that the press has given our work of coal reweighing 

 and of prosecutions for the violation of the law in the sale of 

 that commodity, in my opinion has saved the city of Boston in 

 the last two years more than ten times the cost of our depart- 

 ment, which is about $30,000 a year. The cases in court from 

 year to year have been decreasing, which is highly gratifying 

 to me, I assure you. We can go on the streets today, and spend 

 three weeks patrolling the streets on inspection of the sales of 

 difl'erent commodities, and I assure you it would be a very 

 difficult thing to find one violation of short weight in the deliv- 

 ery of coal in Boston. Last summer in the hottest season 

 Boston was the pioneer city in the suppressing of fraud in the 

 sale of ice. We made a crusade in the month of July and 

 found violations of from 40 pounds on the hundred to 600 

 pounds on the load. In three weeks we had corrected that 

 fully, so that the public got more ice than they could get in the 

 ice chest, and the poor people at the north end of the city, those 

 who had their nickel and only their nickel to spend for ice, 

 possibly for sick children, in many instances got 25 pounds for 

 a nickel. So you see that the Department of Weights and 

 Measures is one of the most valuable departments in any state 

 or municipality. I believe it should stand in line, side by side 

 with our schools, our churches and our courts of justice. 



I do not wish to have you understand that a great majority 

 of our merchants in Boston are dishonest, for I wish to make 



