Fees in the American Colonies. 
115 
the contents. This new duty, placed upon the old gaugers of 
casks, was not looked upon as anything new or novel, but was 
designed to better carry out the purpose of the old statutes. 1 
In fact it was not even called inspection, in the earliest Mas¬ 
sachusetts laws, but seems to have been considered as a part of 
the duties of sealers of weights and measures, and gaugers of 
casks. But the element of inspection for some definite purpose, 
soon becomes so prominent as to overshadow, to a certain ex¬ 
tent, the object of the old laws, resulting finally in special in¬ 
spection laws, entirely distinct from the enactments regulating 
the sealers and gaugers of casks. As an example may be men¬ 
tioned the Massachusetts act of 1641, entitled “an act for the 
preventing deceit of any person in the packing of fish, beef, or 
pork to be put on sale in this or other jurisdictions.” 2 
Numerous instances may be found in the colonial laws of any 
one of the colonies, where attempts are made to insure integrity 
both as to quantity and quality of goods put upon the market. 
Some laws, however, are much more far-reaching, in that they 
were intended to regulate the price as well. 
The economic condition which must be regarded as the ulti¬ 
mate cause of much of this legislation, is the lack of a currency 
or suitable medium of exchange. Most of the exchanges of this 
period were barter, and were based on commodities rather than 
money values. Tobacco especially was used as money, and was 
recognized as such by law in Virginia, Maryland, and South 
Carolina. Fines and penalties in many colonies were paid in 
shingles, or other products; and taxes and fees were almost 
everywhere levied and collected in kind. The need therefore 
was soon felt, of having some public official to test and appraise 
this heterogeneous currency. The attempts to regulate the 
prices of certain commodities can be explained in the same way. 
This was not sumptuary legislation, in the same sense that the 
laws and regulations of the early Kings of France were. The 
liberty-loving spirit of the colonists would tolerate no such 
restraints. These laws, providing for measures of wood 3 and 
1 Provincial Laws , Mass. Bay Colony, I, 50; II, 129-131. 
2 Col. Laws , Mass., p. 130. 
3 Provincial Laws, Mass., V, 1119. 
