58 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



engendered a certain amount of discontent in various parts 

 of the country. With the view of inquiring into the 

 reasons of that discontent, a Royal Commission on Market 

 Rights and Tolls was issued in July, 1887, to inquire into 

 the whole subject, and to report as to the alterations 

 which might be desirable in the existing law relating to 

 markets, having due regard to the interests of those 

 concerned. 



Among the conclusions at which the Royal Commission 

 arrived, were two which were at once passed into law, 

 and of which special mention should be made. 



The first of these recommendations (which was the 

 twenty-fourth made by the Commission) ran as follows : — 



That it is desirable that markets which are now required 

 to be provided with machines for weighing cattle should be 

 furnished with sufficient and suitable accommodation for the 

 same ; the question of sufficiency and suitability to be deter- 

 mined by the Board of Agriculture, after inspection. 



It will be remembered that, by the Markets and Fairs 

 (Weighing of Cattle) Act of 1887, all authorities of cattle 

 markets were directed to provide " weighing machines 

 and weights for the purpose of weighing cattle," and, 

 accordingly, machines were erected at the various markets 

 throughout the kingdom. But the market authorities, 

 compelled to incur an outlay for which they failed to 

 see the need, complied in many instances only with the 

 letter of the law, and ignored, or set themselves to defeat, 

 its spirit. For instance, one of the Assistant Commis- 

 sioners who visited a large number of the English markets 

 reported to the Royal Commission that weighbridges 

 were not generally placed in convenient situations. He 

 observed that " Wherever you have an important 

 market — as you have at Wakefield — for cattle, it struck 

 me as being almost ridiculous to have a small weighbridge 

 upon which it is exceedingly difficult to get a fat beast 

 to stand." He remarked, further, that though some 



