JULY — SEPT. 1857.] 



for India. 



209 



reasonably expected that the people of the interior, in their traffic 

 with such Towns and Cantonments, will gradually acquire a know- 

 lege of, and a convenience in conforming to, the Standards ; so that 

 in a further period of time, the local operation of the law may be 

 extended. As regards the Towns and Cantonments specified, there 

 will be time beforehand for the people to make themselves acquaint- 

 ed with the new standards, to prepare new sets of Weights and Mea- 

 sures, and arrange their prices accordingly. During this period also, 

 every assistance and encouragement should be given by the officers 

 of Government to those who are likely to be inconvenienced by the 

 measure. " Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re." 



All Government transactions, accounts, tariffs, &c, should be in 

 terms of the new System, and in every purchase made by the Public 

 Departments, their own Standard Weights and Measures should 

 be employed. This would supersede the attempts (always futile) 

 to specify on every occasion, in equivalent terms of the authorised 

 standard, the ever varying and uncertain values of the Native 

 Weights and Measures. For general purposes, and as. a guide to 

 the Departmental officers, Tables of equalization should be prepar- 

 for each District, showing the average results of experiments made 

 to determine the value of the local Weights and Measures. Such 

 Tables though useful, will not of course be conclusive in every 

 case of purchase, inasmuch as Weights and Measures differ in 

 different villages, and the Tables can only give the result of the 

 average of the District. Such Tables have been lately compiled 

 in the Presidency of Madras. 



In order to prepare the people for the reception of the new 

 Standards, not only should they be enforced in the chief Towns, 

 and used in all Government transactions, but they should be ex- 

 plained in all the Government schools, vernacular tracts on the 

 subject should be freely distributed, models should be kept in store 

 in all public offices (both for ascertaining the true equivalents of 

 the Native Weights and Measures, and to enable those who wish 

 to take copies), and it should be constantly and publicly notified 

 that the operation of the Act would be eventually extended to every 

 bazaar in the country. The Chambers of Commerce, and the Rail- 

 ways and other Companies, should be urged to co-operate, even in 



