204 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



The statute is re-enacted by n Hen. VI, cap. 8, where 

 divers statutes are recited. One of these is i Hen. V, cap. 10, 

 defining the quarter of corn to be eight struck bushels, and 

 putting fines on purveyors who take more. This statute also 

 denounces the London fait, which contained nine bushels, and 

 a practice which had grown up in the city of making sellers of 

 corn not only submit to this extra measure, but to a tax for 

 measuring corn. The statute provides that as the law had 

 hitherto required a common balance, the local authorities shall 

 also provide a common bushel, certified according to the 

 standard of the Exchequer. The Mayor of the city of London 

 is to make oath at the Exchequer that he will satisfy and carry 

 out the law, the mayors and other chief officers of provincial 

 towns shall do the same, and all of them shall account at the 

 Exchequer for the fines and forfeitures which they have imposed 

 on culprits. 



By 7 Hen. VII, cap. 3, weights and measures are to be pro- 

 vided for every city, town, and borough by the treasurer or 

 under-treasurer of England, at the costs and charges of the 

 locality, and these are to be the standard by which private 

 measures shall be marked or stamped. The chief officers of 

 every such city, &c., shall stamp these private measures, 

 charging a penny for sealing every bushel or hundredweight, 

 a halfpenny for every half hundred, and a farthing for all smaller 

 weights. Defaulters are to be fined forty shillings. The 

 statute is re-enacted n Hen. VIII, cap. 4, with additions. 

 The duty of seeing that proper standards are found is imposed 

 on the borough members. Offenders who sell by false weights 

 are to be punished by a fine of 6s. %d. for the first offence, 

 13^. Afd. for the second, and the pillory for the third. Eight 

 struck bushels are again declared to constitute the quarter of 

 corn, i4lbs. to be the stone, and 26 stone to be the sack of 

 wool ; and a list of towns in which a standard should be kept, 

 one in each county, is appended to the act. 



There are numerous statutes as to particular articles. Thus 

 the butt of malmsey is, 7 Henry VII, cap. 7, to contain 126 



