On Weights and Measures

Extract

Public attention has for some time past been earnestly directed to the introduction of the decimal system in our weights, measures, and coins. The nation is generally convinced, that the adoption of such a system would prove of immense benefit—that it would afford great facilities for calculations of all kinds, that it would shorten the work of education, that it would economise labour, and that it would diminish the chances of error. The Society of Arts, and other scientific societies, have investigated the subject in all its phases and bearings, and we have been expecting the speedy adoption of some practical plan which would be certain to confer so great a boon. Unfortunately, the Russian war, the Indian mutiny, and other political events, have rendered it necessary to put aside the consideration of many social reforms, and this, among the rest, shared the same fate. We have bestowed, also, far too much attention to the pound and mil scheme, as if upon it rested the entire question of decimalisation, and thus years have passed without a single step of a definite character being taken.