not universally so. I hold that the addition of the identical weights of casks written in two ways, once as kilogrammes, and once as cwts. qrs. lbs., will be made in a shorter time by anyone in the English system. I have made the experiment some years ago with our clerks, and they all used more time in adding up the kilo columns, and all declared it was stiffer mental work."
The virtues of ease and speed in calculations claimed for the metric system is, after all, the common property of all decimal systems, of which the metric is but one. In "Modern Metrology," a veritable storehouse of information, gathered from the four quarters of the earth, the author, Mr. L. D’A. Jackson, points out "The advantages of rapidity of calculation accompanying any decimal system are very great, and the rigidity of the ancient decimal systems of Egypt and China has been scrupulously imitated by the French in their metric system. It can be applied to any unit equally well, provided that there is an indifference as to whether the dependent units of the system are convenient or inconvenient for commercial purposes in weighing and measuring. It must, however, be noticed that the convenience is solely due to accordance with numerical notation as regards decimality." He goes on to say that though decimalisation may be easily applied to any arbitrary unit, "the fact remains that the French and the Chinese and Japanese systems are the only ones in which it is actually carried out and fully applied at the present day."
