270 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



with the cost to those manufacturers of the Society's trials at 

 Chester last year ? 



Again— can we, in cheaper implements, gather any fruits 

 from tneauial instead of annual trials ? Mr. Howard has not 

 entered the lists with his matchless ploughs for three years. 

 He tells us that the cost of these trials is paid by the pur- 



chasers of his ploughs " by an extra per-centage." Has he 

 reduced his price one shilling now that he has escaped this 

 expensive ordeal for three years, and everything is cheaper now 

 than it was then ? At any rate, we hope he will not make us 

 pay any more after he has passed through the dreaded Warwick 

 trials next July. — Oxford Journal. 



SALE OF CORN BY "THE CENTAL. 



It is only a winter oftwo since, that the grave men 

 of Liverpool, by way of a little agreeable relaxation, 

 took to snowballing each other. They entered, indeed, 

 with so much energy into the amusement, that from 

 playing they very nearly came to fighting ; and, if we 

 recollect aright, the police had ultimately to interfere. 

 Unfortunately for either children of a larger or a smaller 

 growth, we have had no winter this year, and hence 

 the staid merchants of that thriving city have had to 

 look about for some other as congenial a pastime. 

 They have been not very long in finding it, and are just 

 now in the midst of some such another civil war. This 

 ■would threaten, however, to be a more serious matter. 

 In place of the yielding melting snow, the good people 

 of Liverpool have laid their hands on far more massive 

 missiles. They are pelting one another now with 

 weights and measures, and throwing bushel-baskets 

 and dangerous centals straight at each other's heads. 

 Business of course is necessarily interfered with, and 

 the dispute is said to be daily becoming more personal 

 and belligerent. Authorities have declared that, in a 

 row, a man may do a deal of mischief with so simple a 

 weapon as a pewter pot. A sharp- edged, well capped 

 bushel-measure, or a nicely poised hundred-pound- 

 weight, might be even still more eflPective; and it is 

 really time to look out. Let the skirmish only get a 

 little hotter, and we shall have the police driven back, 

 the military sent for, and the Riot-Act read. 



The difTerence began in thiswise : — For some time past 

 both the buyers and sellers of corn have almost every- 

 where been insisting upon the necessity of some uni- 

 formity of weight or measure. So far, it would have 

 been impossible to have had people more unanimous. 

 But in the detail, however, of how this is to be arrived 

 at they are seldom so readily inclined to agree. In fact, 

 they rather agree only to differ. There is scarcely a 

 speaker at a meeting, the writer of a letter to a news- 

 paper, or a person you get into conversation with, on 

 the subject, but has some pet plan of his own. In that 

 memorable discussion at the Central Farmer' Club 

 but a year since, upon this very question, most of 

 the members who voted either with Mr. Wallis 

 or Mr. Skelton, still did so under a kind of pro- 

 test. Every one had something to propose he fancied a 

 little better ; and had the Chairman only been willing, 

 he might have gone on putting resolutions the whole 

 night through. Then one local meeting suggests this 

 infallible system of uniformity, and another is equally 

 urgent as to the merit of something diametrically op- 

 posite. In the meanwhile the Government looks on 

 complacently enough. It will wait of course until 



these good folks have quite settled amongst themselves 

 what they do want, and then it will be time enough to 

 talk to them. 



In this dilemma the merchants of Liverpool have 

 come to the rescue. They have voted themselves judge, 

 jury and arbitrators, and kindly consented to decide the 

 point. With the simplicity of true genius, they 

 have unravelled this Gordian knot by one straight cut 

 at it. Weight is preferable; and, after the 1st of 

 February, we buy and sell by weight only. We call this 

 weight the Cental, and we hereby command all other 

 markets to adopt it. Naturally influenced by so high an 

 authority, other places at once succumb. Glasgow calls 

 a meeting, and is declared unanimous. Hull does some- 

 thing of the same sort, and it straightway gets abroad 

 that all the great towns are in favour of the cental system. 

 " Only look," as people say, "how well it is working 

 in Liverpool !" And, when we do look, it is nothing 

 but the old story over again. The Cental even here, 

 inthe land of its birth, has quite as bitter enemies 

 as it numbers warm friends. The merchants of 

 Liverpool, who forwarded us their decree are now for- 

 mally protested against as not representing the mer- 

 chants of Liverpool, and their proceeding is said to be 

 "merely the work of a few individuals, some of them 

 not connected with the trade at all." In a word, from 

 the letters we have lately received it would appear to 

 be but another reading of the Three Tailors of Tooley- 

 street. Glasgow, too, has revolted; and Hull already 

 " gives the new weight the slip." All this, however, is 

 scarcely more than could have been expected, when we 

 find the law-givers have no power over their own 

 subjects. 



On first hearing of this movement, we still pointed 

 to the Government as the only proper quarter 

 from which any such step should emanate. " It 

 is very evident," we then wrote, " something 

 ' official' must be done, otherwise we shall have other 

 great markets rooting up all custom, and, like Liver- 

 pool, making laws for themselves. It can scarcely be 

 expected that they will quite agree as to the best sys- 

 tem, and so with a new method here and another there, 

 we shall have ' confusion worse confounded.' It is high 

 time for the Government to interlere." We can really 

 do no better than repeat this. What we so clearly antici- 

 pated has already come to pass, and taking Liverpool 

 itself as the example, we have " confusion worse con- 

 founded." Even admitting the right or policy of any 

 private body of men attempting to make laws for the 

 whole country, we .should question very much whether 

 the best plan has been here hit upon. There could cer- 



