114 
English Markets and Fairs. 
fetch. Yet, under the common system, no farmer who sends his 
beasts to a salesman is able to check any statement which is 
made to him as to the prices current for the class of animals 
which he sold. Thus, to quote from evidence given by Sir 
John Lawes before the Royal Commission, it is possible to know 
with very great accuracy, by weighing them alive, what animals 
will weigh when dead ; but, said Sir John Lawes, “ if I send to 
the London market and look at the quoted prices for that meat 
in the paper, I find that instead of my animals weighing, when 
killed, 55, 56, or 58 per cent., as I know they ought to weigh, 
they only weigh, perhaps, 50 or 51 per cent., I know with absolute 
certainty that the figures are misleading and incorrect.” It is 
true that some attempt was made to publish the prices in the 
newspapers, and more recently, in The Times and other papers, live- 
weight prices have also been periodically given. The latter are, so 
far as they go, useful, but the former were either so indefinite as 
to be meaningless or so inaccurate as to be misleading. As a rule 
the papers report the prices in the vaguest terms. Their value 
was well illustrated by Mr. Pell in his evidence before the Royal 
Commission. The newspaper reports, in relation to the market 
at Leicester, week after week described the market as being 
“ better,” and stated that prices had risen a halfpenny per pound ; 
so that, observed Mr. Pell, “ if those reports were worth any- 
thing, beef would be standing now at something like 80s. a pound. 
I looked at the report yesterday, and I found just the same thing 
— that prices were about a halfpenny per pound better.” 
The advantage of accurate price records is twofold : market 
repoi’ts, if inaccurate, may mislead farmers and producers in 
sending forward their supplies to market ; again, inaccurate or 
incomplete market reports are misleading to the consumer, as 
showing the wholesale prices to be on a totally different level 
from that on which they really stand, preventing fair comparison 
with what is charged in the retail trade for commodities, and 
generally hindering business. They would be an advantage — 
as mentioned by Major Craigie before the Royal Commission — 
to agriculturists and statisticians and to the public generally, 
and they would have the effect of equalising prices, and perhaps 
preventing “ gluts ” by drawing supplies to the markets where 
the quotations were high. 
These two recommendations of the Commission, viz., for the 
better provision of facilities for weighing cattle, and for the 
collection of live-weight prices at markets, were given effect to 
by the Markets and Pairs (Weighing of Cattle) Act of 1891. 
This measure provides that market authorities having to erect 
weighbridges shall provide and maintain “ sufficient and suit- 
able accommodation ” for weighing cattle to the satisfaction of 
