The Standard of Weights, Measures, and Coinage. 299 



searching inquiries have led to the elicitation of some rather 

 startling revelations. For example, it has been discovered 

 that out of three hundred and one cities and towns in Great 

 Britain, which have in times past been furnished with so-called 

 authoritative and judicial standards, one hundred and twenty- 

 have now only illegal ones. This amounts to thirty- six per 

 cent, of the whole number. Out of fifty-seven manors or liber- 

 ties similarly supplied with official arbiters of weights and mea- 

 sures, not less than forty-four, or seventy-seven per cent, (of 

 said standards) have been condemned as quite unreliable. It 

 is feared that further examinations will lead to the elimination 

 of further discrepancies ; and in Ireland it is known that the 

 proportion of defective standards is very large. The conse- 

 quences of these circumstances to the community at large, are 

 very serious. The conviction of dishonest traders in any 

 locality where illegal standards exist, is an impossibility. The 

 Weights and Measures' laws are in such cases " dead letters," 

 for they distinctly specify that the standards shall be legal by 

 which comparisons are to be made. 



The significance of these statements is augmented in pre- 

 sence of the known increase of the species of fraud just indi- 

 cated, namely, the giving of short weights and measures 

 among shopkeepers and others. It is of the highest moment 

 that local standards should be periodically adjusted and re- 

 verified, so that thereby the majesty of the laws of England 

 shall be upheld. 



From a consideration of the foregoing statements, it is 

 hoped that a clear conception of the importance of the task 

 of the verification of the standards of length, weight, and 

 capacity,* will be gained. Of the value or otherwise of the 

 standard trial-plates for testing the purity of coins, a word or 

 two shall be said hereafter. 



In view of the momentous issues involved in the re-ad- 

 justment of the standards, the Government has nominated a 

 commission to assist the warden in the performance of the 

 work. That commission is composed of the following gentle- 

 men — the Earl of Rosse, Lord Wriothesly, Sir John Shaw 

 Lefevre, Lieutenant -General Sabine, the Astronomer-Royal, the 

 Master of the Mint, and Professor W. H. Miller. The labours 

 of this eminently scientific body are to be confined mainly to 

 an inquiry into the condition of the old Exchequer Standards, 

 and to ascertain in how far these agree with the Imperial Stand- 



* It may be stated that the standards of weight and capacity are based upon 

 principles coincident with those which govern the standard of length, namely, the 

 laws of Nature, while their corresponding measures are mere artificial arrange- 

 ments. The thermometer illustrates these distinctions very well. The boiling and 

 freezing points of water constitute standards of heat ; the intermediate grada- 

 tions are measures of it. 



