English MmJcets and Fairs. 
113 
It will be remembered that by the Markets and Fairs 
(Weighing of Cattle) Act of 1887 all authorities of cattle markets 
were directed to provide “ weighing machines and weights for 
the purpose of weighing cattle,” and, accordingly, machines were 
erected at the various markets throughout the kingdom. But 
the market authorities, compelled to incur an outlay for which 
they failed to see the need, complied in many instances only 
with the letter of the law, and ignored, or set themselves to 
defeat, its spirit. For instance, one of the Assistant Commis- 
sioners who visited a large number of the English markets re- 
ported to the Royal Commission that weighbridges were not 
generally placed in convenient situations. He observed that 
“ wherever you have an important market — as you have at 
Wakefield — for cattle, it struck me as being almost ridiculous 
to have a small weighbridge upon which it is exceedingly diflB- 
cult to get a fat beast to stand.” He remarked, further, that 
though some market authorities had done their best to erect 
suitable weighbridges in convenient situations, others had not 
seemed to care about the efficiency of the machines. Other 
evidence bearing out this opinion might be cited, but it may be 
said that market authorities had taken, as a rule, no trouble 
to do more than the Act absolutely commanded, and, un- 
fortunately, no provision had been made for seeing that the 
facilities provided were sufficient for, or suitable to, the require- 
ments of the markets. Hence arose the recommendation of the 
Royal Commission on the subject. 
The other recommendation referred to was the twenty-sixth, 
which was as follows : — 
That it is desirable to collect statistics of the market prices of meat, 
and, in particular, that the prices of cattle at per stone, live-weight, should 
be collected (in the same manner as the prices of corn are now returned) 
in such markets as may be selected for the purpose by the Board of Trade. 
This is a reform which has long been urged by leading 
agriculturists and agricultural statisticians. It is interesting to 
recall that the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, in 
June 1888 — incited thereto by Mr. Pell, who was seconded by 
the late Mr. Little, and supported by Colonel (now Sir Nigel) 
Kingscote — unanimously resolved that it is desirable that the 
Government “ should collect, and publish in an official form, the 
market prices of meat as they do of corn.” 
The official record of the live-weight prices of stock is a 
corollary of the practice of weighing cattle at markets. Nothing, 
it will be admitted, can be more unsatisfactory than a system 
under which the seller does not know — and has no means, other 
than personal observation, of knowing — what price his animals 
VOL. III. T.S. — 9 I 
