having one foot, one mile, one acre, one pound, one gallon, and one bushel. It will not, it is true, bear comparison with the French system as a scientific one, although it is infinitely superior to it for the commercial purposes of weighing and measuring in ordinary trade transactions; in fact, the pre-eminence it has is due to the fact that it is not a scientific system, but purely adapted to convenience in commerce.” Seiss, Piazzi Smith, and many other writers, contend for the total superiority of our system.
Metricalisation has received adoption in all the countries of Europe, except Russia and our own motherland. But at this juncture we may profitably consider the course of events in two great divisions of the English-speaking race—the United States of America and Canada. If it be true, though it cannot be admitted, that the United Kingdom is losing ground in the struggle for commercial supremacy by adherence to out-of-date methods, our kinsmen in the countries named are not under any imputation of slothfulness in matters of trade. Yet we find them adhering to the British system in all great essentials. Uncle Sam has made some modifications in the direction of simplicity by the abolition, for example, of cwts. and qrs., using only lbs., in stating quantities, large or small. The gallon used is different, being the old English one. In Canada, though the metric system has been permissive since 1871, it has failed to come into use, and is not likely to. On the contrary, adherence to British standards has been strengthened. Mr. Brunel, chief of the Weights and Measures Department, has written: “No reason exists for adopting the metric system in Canada. We have already standards of weights and length, which have been long common to the whole Empire, and by which the greater part of the international trade of the
