114 
Urdahl—Historical Survey of Fee Systems. 
ment of assayers of ashes, whose duty it should be to test the 
quality of all ashes intended for export. Another law passed 
by the same body in 1698, providing for the appointment of 
searchers and sealers of leather was enacted, "for the better pre¬ 
venting of deceits and abuses by tanners, curriers and dressers, 
or workers-up, of leather." 1 A somewhat similar enactment 
was enforced very early in the colony of New Plymouth. 2 These 
laws regarding the inspection of leathers were naturally made 
necessary by the fact, that a large number of inexperienced 
tanners attempted to work hides into leather, and thus flooded 
the market with a worthless product. The object of this inspec¬ 
tion legislation was, therefore, to protect the consumers at home 
against the frauds or inefficiency of the producers in this indus¬ 
try. 3 The causes of later laws of the same character may be 
gathered from the following preamble of a statute, passed by the 
General Court of Massachusetts on June 21, 1710: 4 "Whereas 
boards, plank, and timber are usually sold by the measure set 
upon them at the mills where they are sawn, and bundles of 
shingles are marked for a greater number than what they con¬ 
tain, wherein great fraud and deceit is too often practiced by 
illminded persons, for prevention whereof . . . ”— meas¬ 
urers of boards and the like were to be annually elected in 
maritime towns, who were required to view all lumber intended 
for sale. 
Many of these early inspection laws may be said to have orig¬ 
inated, indirectly at least, in the necessity of having official 
gaugers of casks and other packages, in order to secure uni¬ 
formity and avoid fraud in the measurement of quantities bought 
or sold. Thus we find an attempt on the part of Massachusetts, 
to require the gaugers of casks and measures, not only to verify 
the size of the cask or barrel of pork or beef, but also to inspect 
1 Ibid., 313-314. An earlier statute dated 1641. Colonial Laws , Mass., 
p. 170. 
2 Charter and Laws of New Plymouth , p. 189. Similar provision in 
Mass, in 1641. Col. Laivs, p. 170. 
3 Complaints were common about poorly tanned leather and shoes mad© 
therefrom. Bruce, History of Virginia , II, 477, 481. 
4 Provincial Laws, Mass., I, 656. 
