310 ) Recent Literature. [ May, 
judge of the matter, reported that the complete adoption of the 
decimal, in place of the present English weights and measures, 
would save two full years in the school-life of every child edu- 
cated. In our country the saving would be something less, be- 
cause of our adoption of the decimal currency; but the most con- 
servative teachers acknowledge that something like this amount 
of time would be saved each child if our present confusion of 
measures were entirely replaced by the International or Metric 
“It should be said in justice to the composer of this report that 
his English is no worse than that signed by seven distinguished 
names (p. 57), of which the following is a sample: “It is 
gratifying to know that the President of the United States, on 
having been consulted by Mr. Washburne upon the question of 
affixing his signature, was authorized by telegraph to do so, and 
signed the convention accordin 
It was no doubt very kind of Mr. Washburne to permit the 
President to sign the convention, but who did Mr. Washburne 
represen 
e must conclude this hasty summary of the Report of the 
Cominittec on Coins, Weights and Measures, by drawing atten- 
tion to the fact that the three tables published i in Frazer’s pam- 
phlet on the “ Proposed 4 of the Metric for our own 
Weights and Measures,” appear on p. 229 and the unnumbered 
following page of the report are without the slightest acknowledg- 
ment of the source whence they were taken 
This is the more remarkable in the table” called “ Distribution 
of English Units,” because this is a photograph of a free hand dia- 
gram of Mr. Frazer, which was improved in the pamphlet above 
referred to. It contains a patent error (as here produced) in the 
line which leads up from the “Rod Pole or Perch” to a group 
with which this length has nothing to do. This error does not 
appear in the pamphlet printed in 1877. 
We would sum up this report by saying that it illustrates but 
too forcibly some of the gravest defects in the present system of 
doing the work of our Government. The object which the com- 
mittee endeavors to further is a good one, viz: the unification of 
weights and measures ; but the M. C. of the last Congress could not 
bestow the time upon ‘this question of pure statesmanship which 
its proper understanding requires, and it is but too clear that some 
underpaid clerk has been delegated by the members to make an 
indigestible salmagundi of all that has been done, with orders not 
to stop short of the two hundredth page. Thus more copy is 
afforded our merry Government presses, more disjointed thinking 
supplied for trunk linings and lamp lighters, while the committee 
may have the satisfaction of knowing that their Report is as un- 
_ satisfactory in favor of a good cause, as in the goloid currency 
question it might have basir fatally effective in a bad one. | 
