The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-31 00:00:00

OPPRESSION UNDER THE WEIGHTS AND
MEASURES ACT.

We had an occasion recently to remark upon the indis-
criminate severity with which this act is wielded against
the trading community ; and, in so doing, adduced two
instances. We have now one before us, which affords
a further striking instance of the want of discretion,
accompanied by something very like a disposition to entrap
respectable parties with which the corporate officials
exercise the very large power placed in their hands. On
the last hearing day, a respectable tradesman connected
with one of the first and most honourable American pas-
senger houses, was summoned for having in his possession
two defective weights. The circumstances we learn were
as follows :—Tho party is an American, recently arrived
in this country ;- and has been only three and a half
months engaged in business. He purchased the weights in
question, new,. from a respectable hardware shop ; and
conceived that, being new, they must be correct. When
waited upon by the inspector, and informed that some of
the weights in question were deficient, he at once offered
to send half of them to be adjusted; not being able to
spare the whole at once, and asked to have pointed out the
deficient ones; but this we are assured was refused. The
half, i'idiscriminately taken, were sent to the office ; and,
before they were returned, another visit was paid to him,
and the deficient weights found amongst the half that had
been left. The information was laid, and the party fined
five shillings.
We really do consider this a gross hardship. The in-
spector might, in the first instance, have selected all the
bad weights for adjustment; and under the circumstances
that the party was doing all that he could—short of closing
his establishment, to wait the convenience of the adjust-
ment office—no information ought in fairness to have been
laid. Had the facts been stated to the bench, we are sure
no punishment would have been inflicted, the worst por-
tion of which, and which honourable men dread most, is
the stigma conveyed by the publication of their names,
without explanation, in the public papers. But unfortu-
nately, as in the present case, most persons are diffident
in explaining themselves in a public court. It would be
well if the bench would consider this fact in giving their
decisions ; and exercise some little discrimination in the
case of parties not likely to be wilfully offending. More-
over, the officers themselves should be a little less hasty,
and anxious to be seen busy. If the weights and mea-
sures office has been neglected in time past, it is hard that
the present generation of traders should be made to suffer
for that neglect. We may suggest also the question—
why are parties allowed to sell weights not adjusted, and
thus to mislead parties not informed as to the law.

Nearly thirty lives were sacrificed on Saturday by an
explosion at a pit on Cleator Moor, within three miles of
Whitehaven , belonging to the Herm elite Minin g Campany.
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.—We have great plea.
sure in presenting the gratifying intelligence to the friends
of missions, that the Rev. H. Powell, who was formerly a
missionary in Ceylon, will preach in St. Simon's Church,
on Thursday evening next. The society's quarterly paper,
issued at Christmas, contained a view of Mr. Powell's
Church when at Baddagame, the locality where for seven
years he laboured in his master's cause. Mr. Powell,
since his return home, has been appointed Association
Secretary for the North Western District of England,
and wherever he has preached or spoken his missionary in-
formation has been most deeply interesting.
TESTIMONIAL TO THE Rry. W. F. HANDCOCK.—On
Wednesday last, an elegant purse containing nearly forty
sovereigns was presented by the congregation of St.
Mary's, Birkenhead, to the Rev. W. Fraser Handcock,
on the occasion of his leaving the curacy. The presenta-
tion took place at the Abbey, the residence of the Rev.
Andrew Knox. Owing to the very limited space of time
between the announcement of the rev. gentleman's in-
tended departure and its actually taking place, it was
found impossible to communicate with many who would
doubtless have been anxious to join in a token of respect
for one whose unwearied zeal and devotion to his minis-
terial duties, and in promoting the welfare of the poor,
deserve to be ever remembered m the neighbourhood.