The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-28 00:00:00

BRONZE.

0.10 ... 30.
0-5 25.
....
02 . .. . 20.
0.1 15 1.
• • • • • ...
A work published in Lisbon, by Carlos J. B arreiros,
1859, third edition, under approval of the " Council of
Public Instruction," and entitled " Compendio Ele-

mentar do System Metrico," contains a copy of the
decree of the Government of Portugal, introducing into
that kingdonatthe metrical system of France, and its
vocabulary, in respect of weights and measures. It is
dated 13th December, 1352, and enacts—
§3. The tie a' system shall be in full operation within
ten vears from that date.
In this interval the Government shall fix succes-
sively the periods when the new weights and measures
shall be obligatory ; only, however, six months after dis-
tribution of the standards, and the explanatory tables to
be provided, the first by the Government, the other by
the " Public Administrations."

§7. After the periods just named, the use of the old
weights, &c., to be illegal, under a fine of 20,000r5. (about
909.) with fifteen days' imprisonment, and confiscation
of the weights.
§9. In all contracts, after the period named in article
4, until that in 3, the correspondency of the new with
the old weights to be designated.
10. Officials of the law contravening the preceding
article, to incur a fine of 50rs. to 100,00 Ors. for the first
offence, (about 122) and double for the second, with loss
of employ.
§ll. No document to be available in the courts of law
unless its weights be the new, or it shall refer to them.
§l4. The " Central Committee" to present annually
to the Government a report of its labours, for the use of
the Cortes.

Few in England would deem these enactments mild,
except the 11th, or auxiliary in promoting among our-
selves the end desired ; yet it may be conceded that
without the interference and power of the Government,
judiciously exercised, the introduction of the system in
question cannot b,; effected even here. It is for the
Government to prepare the way, among other means by
legalising a weight of 100 lbs., and its subdivisions, in
lieu of the present cwt. of 112 lbs ; and by providing a
coin the tenth of the florin. As a case in point, the
coinage of Portugal was decimalised in 1835, and it is
now beautifully expressive.

The Lusitanian author of the work just cited, claps

his hands, and breaks forth into singing : " The metrical
system, naturalised in all lands, because to all it per-
tains, though deriving its first impulse from France ; the
metrical system, adopted among ourselves, as it hath
been by other nations of Europe, and hath to be through
all the world, will be one bond more between the peoples,
one potency added, which, by its cosmopolitan character,
will concur in the fusion of human kind. Grandific
thought 1 the advances of civilisation no longer allow
it to be deemed Utopian !" Well done, Tagus !

The standard of the gold coins of England and Por-
tugal being similar, .9161, the British sovereign as
4,600 rs., and the half-sovereign as 2,250 re., have by
law a circulation in Portugal concurrent with that of
the national coins—a privilege not enjoyed by other
foreign monies there, and, to some extent, " a bond
between the peoples" of those lands. The " Compendio
Elementar" contains a series of tables converting the
weights and measures of France into those of Portugal,
and vice versa; also the tables of the equivalency of
prices under the old and the new system.
The metrical system of France, born and cradled in

the era of the guillotine and the sans culottes, was
eminently a creation of science, the work of the Academy
of Sciences at Paris, under authority of the Constituent
Assembly; it is also denominated " legal system," from
its being alone authorised in France by a law of 4th
July, 1837.
There can be little doubt, from the proceedings on

this subject in the House of Commons, June 1855, that
the resolutions then proposed as to the coinage would
now be affirmed on a division, and the principle would
in time be of easy application to weights and measures.

CAROLIJS.