Daily Republican., 1882-06-12
Market Frau Is.

One of the first duties of the City
Council should be to pass an ordinance
regulating weights and measures in the
markets that are established and regu
lated by the city ordinances, for there
may exist doubt as to the right of the
city to interfere with stores that pay a
State license and are presumed to be in
operation under the State laws. There
never was such a pressing need of hon.
est weights and measures in the city
marke ts as there is to-day, and it is
fact that people have become so accus
toned to being cheated and defrauded
that they submit to the outrage as a
matter of course and as if they had tU
be defrauded. For q long time past
there has been occasionally a savage
complaint at the shortness of weight in
the sale Of meat. 1t was and still is no
unusual thing for housekeepers to go
to the market and purchase what pur.
ports to be pound Of meat, but when
they weigh it they find they only have
three quarters of pound, and if four
pounds were intended to be bought, they
find on weighing it that they have but
three pounds, the odds being the butch
or's pound Of flesh. This disgraceful
fraud is still carried on with impunity
in our markets. The people complain
and the frauds ask them what they are
going to do about it, as the sealer of
weights and measures lives in Middle
town and doesn't bother himself about
honest or dishonest measures. Since
the strawberry season has commenced,
the frauds in short measures are the
more apparent. We are sorry to say it,
but it is fact nevertheless that there
are but few strawberry dealers in the
King street market who use honest
quart measures. Little bits of curtailed
manipulated, wizen.faced tin-cups, and
called quart measures are used in meas
uring strawberries, but they are no
more quart measures than a pint is a
quart.
On Saturday afternoon as has been
ascertained by representative CT the
REPUBLICAN,, there we're very few hon
est quart measures used between Third
and Fifth streets. There are more
Strawberries on these two squares than
ON any other two in the city. In this |
distance there were between thirty and |
forty strawberry dealers, and so far
As we could find there were not more
than six or seven who had honest quart
measures. The people we're purchasing
right along rapidly and getting cheated
and defrauded before their eyes. The
difference between full quart measure
and the stinted thin things that were
used for quarts was. easily discernible If
only the people had stopped to look and
make the comparison. This disgrace
fui cheating and fraud should be stopped
Immediately by the City Council. A
market master is soon to be elected and
An ordinance could be enacted giving
him supreme authority to drive these
dishonest dealers out of the market or
drive them to using honest measures.
After the strawberry season is over,
cherries, raspberries, blackberries and
other fruits measured by the quart will
follow. Are the people to be cheated
all the way through by set of dishon-
est shysters? Poor men who work
hard for the scanty wages they receive
and who are as fond of berries as the {
rich, should be protected against these I
berry frauds, and the City Council can
do nothing which would be more popu-
lar with the people than to take the
matter in hand right at the start of the
new administration. Through ten
years of Democratic rule these dishon- g
est short weight and short measure ,
have been permitted to {
have their own way. One year of Re-
publican rule should drive every man {
who does not sell produce on the esquare s
out of the market. We are glad to be {
informed that the question is already (
broached ard that gentleman contem-
plates preparing an ordinance to meet {
he case Immediately. II