ealer, wholesale or
retail, was obliged to have his weights verified and stamped. The
brewer was compelled to get new casks; the retailer new pots and
pints; the farmer new bushels, and, consequently, new corn-sacks. The
expense thus incurred was enormous, and the grumbling was of course in
due proportion.

It is believed that the units above mentioned--the yard, the pound
avoirdupois, and the imperial gallon--cannot now be superseded by any
other. It remains to shew, as Mr Taylor has very satisfactorily
done,[1] how that which has been well begun may be followed out and
completed by the establishment of more complete uniformity, and the
legalisation of decimal gradations for facilitating calculation.

The two co-existing pounds originally adjusted in relation to the
specific gravities of wheat and spring-water, are now the sole remains
and representatives of a fanciful theory spun in the middle ages; and
the first question that occurs is, whether the pound troy, having
served its purpose, might not be done away with, and the pound
avoirdupois ascertained by reference to a cubic inch of distilled
water. We were told forty years ago, that for the introduction of a
uniform and scientific system, we must wait for the spread of
education in the community; and we feel somewhat ashamed now to find
that the members of the medical profession, which is understood to be
one of the most highly-educated bodies, offer the most formidable
opposition to reformation in this respect. 'The testimony, however,'
says Mr Taylor, 'of many individuals of the medical profession,
especially the younger portion, and certainly that of the retailers
and dispensers of drugs, tends entirely to shew the practicability of
a beneficial and convenient change. With all these, there appears no
more serious difficulty to encounter than that involved in altered
editions of their usual dispensatories, or books of reference'--an
amount of trouble and expense, we should say, not greater, certainly,
in proportion to the position of the parties concerned, than that
which was forced on the poor chandlers and milkwomen by the act of
1826.

Then, to adapt the avoirdupois pound to the further objects in view,
it must be reconstructed as to its divisional parts. In order to this,
it is not necessary that the nomenclature should be changed, or that
our poor people should be puzzled with the _decas_, and _hexas_, and
_millias_ which has formed the greatest practica