WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



weigh 46 Ibs. ; Welsh friezes of Cardigan, Caermarthen, and 

 Pembroke, 36 yards long, be three quarters broad, and weigh 

 48 Ibs. ; Northern cloths shall contain from 23 to 25 yards, 

 seven quarters breadth, and weigh 46 Ibs. ; half pieces or dozens, 

 twelve to thirteen yards, of the same breadth, and weigh 33 Ibs.'; 

 Pennystones and forest whites are to be from 12 to 13 yards long, 

 six and a- half quarters broad, and weigh 28 Ibs. ; Manchester, 

 Lancashire, and Cheshire cottons shall be 22 yards long, three 

 quarters of a yard broad, and weigh 30 Ibs. ; and lastly, Man- 

 chester rugs shall be 36 yards long, three quarters broad, and 

 weigh 48 Ibs. 



These varieties of quality and measure, and the diversity of 

 place in which textile industries were carried on, may seem rather 

 more relevant to that part of my subject in which I shall treat 

 of cloths, or to that in which I have dealt with the distribu- 

 tion of employments and wealth. But it seemed more con- 

 venient to insert this information in what has to be said about 

 weights and measures, in order to show how the police of 

 government extended itself from the earliest and most obvious 

 necessaries of consumption to the particulars of trade and 

 manufacture. 



The measure of Lancashire cloths is made anew a subject 

 of legislative precaution by 8 Eliz. cap. 12. Another act, 

 14 Eliz. cap. 10, restrains 'the inordinate length of kerseys.' 

 By 23 Eliz. cap. 8, the barrel of honey is fixed at 32 wine 

 gallons, the kilderkin 16, and the firkin 8, frauds to be fined 

 at the rate of five shillings the pottle. This is the last 

 enactment about weights and measures on that part of the 

 statute book which comes within the epoch of my re- 

 searches. 



The quarter, bushel and peck are nearly universal measures 

 of corn. But the comb or half quarter is very general in the 

 Eastern counties, particularly in Norfolk. I have not retained 

 it in my accounts, but have reduced it to what it always 

 represents. The sum is also used for the quarter, and the 

 strike for the bushel. As I have already observed, the sum of 



