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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



prejudices, hopes, and interests of their 

 fathers, brothers, husbands, and lovers, 

 they had cheerfully doubled the voting 

 power of these. Where, as in the case 

 of schoolmistresses and factory girls, 

 they had some special bond of union 

 other than domestic they had voted 

 very much as schoolmasters and male 

 trade-unionists had voted. . . . With 

 one accord colonists ceased to be afraid 

 of what the suffrage might do, and 

 began instead to complain of it for not 

 doing more. Only here and there care- 

 ful observers note that groups of wom- 

 en are studying politics, and foresee 

 that, as years go by, these will supply a 

 new and intelligent force with distinct 

 and logically reasoned aims of its own." 



The Metric System (a Letter to the 

 London Times). — Sir: I see that on 

 Wednesday next, the 22d inst., the 

 President of the Board of Trade is to re- 

 ceive a deputation from the Decimal As- 

 sociations and others to urge on the 

 Government, not merely the adoption 

 of the decimal system of notation, but 

 the compulsory application within two 

 years of the metric system of weights 

 and measures in its entirety. I have 

 been hoping to see a letter in the Times 

 from some person of importance calling 

 attention to this deputation. I fer- 

 vently trusted I should notice one from 

 your correspondent, Mr. Herbert Spen- 

 cer, who, a year or so back, contributed 

 a series of thoroughly well-thought-out 

 and logical articles, exposing the fal- 

 lacy of "the metric system ; but if any 

 such letter has appeared I have, unfor- 

 tunately, missed it. I believe this agi- 

 tation to be largely due to scientific pro- 

 fessors who have been brought up on 

 foreign books, and have found it too 

 much trouble to convert foreign meas- 

 urements into English; further, due to 

 the promptings of a number of foreign 

 merchants, forming (happily, or unhap- 

 pily) now so large a portion of our 

 traders — men who, also, do not wish to 

 take the trouble of converting foreign 

 weights and measures into English. As 

 regards the suggestion, made time after 

 time, that the metric system is one giv- 

 ing the greatest simplicity to calcula- 

 tions, I say unhesitatingly, from very 

 considerable experience, that it is one 

 absolutely subversive of mental arith- 

 metic, and I appeal to anybody who has 



ever had the misfortune to wait at the 

 guichet of a French railway station 

 while the clerk inside has been calcu- 

 lating the total amount to be paid for 

 two first-class and one second-class from 

 " A " to " B " with a piece of chalk, or 

 pencil and paper, to compare the speed 

 and the certainty of this process with 

 the answer that he would get at Euston, 

 or at any such station in Great Britain, 

 and saj' which system shows by results 

 the advantages in point of time and in 

 accuracy. The French themselves, as 

 lias been pointed out on more than one 

 occasion, find the metric system too irk- 

 some, and they evade it. According to 

 the metric system, one of its great mer- 

 its is that you can state every required 

 quantity by multiples or submultiples 

 of ten — metre, 1 ; decimetre, 0.1 ; centi- 

 metre, 0.01 ; millimetre, 0.001. But no 

 Frenchman thinks of expressing himself 

 in this way. Instead of 0.01, he says 

 cm. 1. For a millimetre, he says mm. 1. 

 When he comes to large weights, does 

 he not commonly abjure the i,000 kilos 

 and write one tonne? When he comes 

 to domestic weights the kilogramme is 

 found too large; the half of this, the 

 practical equivalent of the pound, is 

 wanted. He ought to write 500 

 grammes. He does not. He abjures 

 his decimals, and writes one half kilo. 

 But I feel I must not take up your space 

 by multiplying instances, so well known 

 to many who have studied the subject, 

 of the unbearable burden of the decimal 

 plus metrical system compulsorily car- 

 ried out. I well know the value of deci- 

 mals, and the indispensable need of their 

 use in many circumstances; but I object 

 to being compelled to use them when 

 they are not needed and are in the way. 

 I find it easier to state seven eighths, and 

 to deal with it mentally, than to put it 

 into the form of .875. I do not wish to 

 be restricted by law in the use of my 

 tools. What \Aould be thought of the 

 law which compelled a shipwright on 

 all occasions to use a chisel, and never 

 to employ the adze. I, with, I believe, 

 every upholder of English weights and 

 measures, and of the use of fractions, 

 am quite willing that the metric sys- 

 tem should be made legal in its entirety 

 throughout Great Britain; but we are 

 not willing that the useful weights and 

 measures which we can employ with so 

 great facility and accuracy should be 



