each other side by side in straight row,
measure a metre across their united
diameters; while twenty five-franc pieces, fresh
from the Mint,weigh exactly half a
kilogramme,or a new pound.The franc should
weigh five grammes of silver, containing one-
twentieth part of alloy. It will be seen that
this is no more than a conventional arrangement
to manufacture medals of a certain size
and weight; the mètre can no more fix the
value of silver, than it can arrest the
variations of human caprice, on which all ideas
respecting value depend.

The unit of our present liquid measures in
England is the gallon . Its retention is not
considered advisable,even if we will not have
the litre ,as too outlandish and Frenchified.
The imperial pint is suggested as a more
proper unit.The gallon is nowhere in use
out of Great Britain.The United States use
the old wine gallon,with which ours has
nothing in common but the name;and it is
just this kind of nominal community which
renders the admission of the term and thing
itself into the new system objectionable.Its
decimal division would necessitate the alteration
of the pint and the half-pint.The gallon,
as a measure of convivial consumption,is
decidedly out of place in these temperance
times; and so salutary a change for the
better has the right to demand the sanction
of law. No harm can possibly arise from the
new system ignoring the gallon.Brewers,
and sellers of oil,would have to alter their
prices in proportion,say per ten,instead of
eight pints. But if the pint were to be
greatly altered,the inconvenience would be
of a very different kind. We all of us drink,
more or less frequently,every day by the
pint,or the half pint; for it is the measure
proper to sustain strength and health,be the
drink water,malt liquor ,or wine;and it is
the measure for which also,in regard to the
physical constitution of the present generation,
the brewer calculates the strength of his
beverages. To meddle with a habit of so
general a character, and which so universally
affects a necessary of life, could therefore only
be justified, if extraordinary difficulties stood
in its way. Now, half a litre is less than a
pint, and its adoption would so far aid the
cause of temperance. A litre of beer or
wine,between two persons,as is often called
for, is a less profuse allowance than an
English quart, which would be ordered
under similar circumstances.The gallon,
undoubtedly, must surrender at discretion,
and yield its place either to the pint or the
litre.

Pint being itself a Saxon word, if we
obstinately resolve to retain that measure,
corresponding terms for its multiples and subdivisions
should be preferred to Latin or French
words. The following are proposed by the
Commercial Traveller, more for the purpose of
clearly distinguishing the proportions, than
with any presumption of proposing terms. In
the present tea-and-coffee-drinking age,the
words cup and spoonful, which after all
are only imitations of the roman calix
and cochlearium,have appeared far preferable
to gill. In the descending scale,one
pint make ten cups,and one cup ten spoonsful.
In the ascending,ten pints make a can,
ten cans make an anker,and ten ankers one
new ton.

Upon principles analogous to those
mentioned in reference to the pint,if the same
measures are found inadmissible in England
to serve both for dry and liquid goods,then
the law ought to call the bushel,and not the
gallon, the unit of the measures for dry
goods.The quarter is objectionable, for
more reasons than one.The division of this
measure by eight, and its multiple, the old
and now forgotten chaldron,of which it is the
fourth part,are things incompatible with
decimal proportions.Its very name is therefore,
to be rejected . As to practice,nearly
the whole United Kingdom ( London and its
immediate dependencies excepted) reckon by
the bushel.The quarter is practically made
use of nowhere ( although the comb is),being
too large a measure to be managed
conveniently in metage; and this being the fact,
the bushel already is the measure generally
used.

The bushel is also the most familiar;
our farmers,when speaking of price and
the yield of their crops,say so much per
bushel,and so many bushels per acre; and so
do the americans,although by selecting such
a moderate base they may appear to have
taken a more modest view of the extent of
their country's  production and commerce,
than their probable future greatness may
justify.Already,the large number of bushels,
in which their president annualy states the
yield of their crops,have an awkward and
unwieldly look . It is consequently proposed
that ten bushels shall make one decuple,
which henceforward will fill the office of comb;
while one bushel should make ten new
gallons, and one gallon ten tenths. An attempt
has been made to mix up with the question
of decimal reform, that of abolishing grain
measures altogether, and making it compulsory
to sell this article by weight. As the
majority of British and Irish  markets already
weigh grain,the abolition of the measures
seem to be desirable; but the object,
namely,general uniformity, would, not for
that be attained, since every market, where
grain is now sold by weight, has its local
custom.

On looking at our existing scales of
weights, we cannot be surprised that the
insidious question, " Which is the heaviest; a
pound of feathers or a pound of lead?"
should be a well-worn test of a child's intelligence.
It is generally supposed that, in the
new system, which will be promulgated one
of these days, our present weights, both
avoirdupois and troy, will be retained. The