comparison of the system of weight and measure
hitherto usual in each with the new uniform
standard, according to calculations made by the
Academy of Sciences; it ordained also the
gratuitous presentation of new weights and
measures to those who might find the purchase of
them too expensive. The books might be used
for six months, at the end of which date all the
old measures and weights were to be abolished
and replaced by the new. There were two
changes subsequent to this, and immediately
after the adoption of the system now current in
France there was so much confusion that Dr.
Thomas Young, an advocate of customary tables
and of measurement by twelves, tells us it had
"become usual for the most simple purposes of
practical mechanics and civil life, to carry in the
pocket a little ruler, in the form of a triangular
prism, one of the sides containing the old
established lines and inches of the royal foot, a
second the millimetres, centimetres, and
decimetres of the revolutionary school, and the third
the new ultra-royal combination of the Jacobin
measure with the royal division, the inches con-
consisting of the thirty-sixth part of a metre, or the
four millionth of a degree of the meridian of
the earth."

But in spite of prejudice, in spite also of the
tremendously classical cut and dried names for
the respective weights and measures that were
indeed to the taste of France in the days of its
Brutuses, and are not alien to the French as they
are to the English character, an uniform system
of reckoning by tens soon proved its own value.
As a national comfort, it has been held firmly
to in France, and has been adopted, or is being
adopted, in Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain,
Portugal, and Switzerland. Germany has accepted
also the French decimal basis of length, and
Russia only waits to follow England's
movement in the same direction.

England is considering. The Great Exhibition
of 'fifty-one embarrassed the juries with
the variety of systems of weight and measure
followed by exhibitors. The Society of Arts
petitioned the Treasury in favour of an uniform
system. In 'fifty-three the Statistical Congress
of Brussels urged the same. The jury of the
Paris International Exhibition in 'fifty-five,
issued a declaration recommending uniformity
of weights and measures. The late Prince
Consort, at the opening of the London Congress
of the International Statistical Society, called
attention to the " difficulties and impediments"
caused by the different weights, measures, and
currencies, in which different statistics are
expressed. Meanwhile the British Branch of an
"International Association for obtaining an
uniform Decimal System of Weights, Measures, and
Coins," has been, thanks especially to the
indefatigable zeal of Mr. James Yates, one of its
vice-presidents, actively calling attention to the
subject. The Associated Chambers of Commerce
of the United Kingdom, at their first annual
meeting last year, resolved, among other matters,
"that the present complicated system of weights
and measures in use throughout Great Britain
and Ireland is very inconvenient to us as a great
commercial nation, and that it is highly desirable
to adopt the metrical system, which has been
introduced into many European countries with
great advantage, and the saving in time in trading
and other accounts." To this effect they
drew up a form of petition to parliament from
the several Chambers of Commerce; the
proposer of the resolution and the inditer of the
petition, being a member of the council of the
Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce, Mr.
Frank P. Fellows, who has given very great
attention to the subject of this most desirable
reform, who ranks, with Mr. James Yates, among
its most zealous and effective advocates, and
from whose lecture on the subject, delivered a
year or two ago at the rooms of the Society of
Arts, and since published, we shall presently
transfer information to these columns.

During the last session of parliament, a select
committee on weights and measures, presided
over by Mr. William Ewart, took evidence
upon the question, including among their
witnesses many of the foreigners distinguished in
science, art, and commerce, then in London.
They examined also English scientific men,
manufacturers, and operatives. Towards the
close of the session this committee sent in their
report, which was almost unanimously in favour
of a gradual introduction of the uniform metrical
system. In the first place, they advise that it
should be permissive; there should be no
compulsion till the public understands, and is
convinced, and calls for, the abolition of all the
discrepant systems. They advise, at the same
time, the gradual introduction of a decimal
system of money. The business of attending
to this gradual introduction of a new system, the
committee would entrust to a new department
of weights and measures established under the
Board of Trade. Government should require
the use of the decimal system in all accounts
with itself, and should make its details a part of
the civil service examination. The decimal unit
of weight, the gramme, would be introduced as
the basis of rates of postage. The Committee
of Council of Education should, says the report,
see at the same time to the early and practical
teaching of decimals in schools. In public
statistics, figures according to the metrical scale
and the old scale should be placed side by side.
In any new acts of parliament, only the metrical
system should be recognised, and until the
metrical fully asserted itself, there should be no
lawful measures except the metrical and the
imperial.

An act of William the Fourth made all
measures unlawful that differed from imperial
measure, and imposed a forty shilling fine for
using them; but little regard was paid to the act
or its penalties. From the beginning until now
they have followed regulation after regulation;
and each new regulation has bred some fresh
habit of measurement to be added to the great
British medley. No tables in the arithmetic-
book—complex and troublesome as are those
mysteries of rods and perches, and hard as it is