Evening star., 1924-01-09
IN TODAY'S SPOTLIGHT
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS

unit? If one debutante weighs 100
pounds, how many does 1T take for a
Bombay "candy"-or even one of
| Madras? 1t is certainly most con-
fusing.
The Constitution gives to Congress
the right to regulate weights and
measures, but Congress has never ex-
ercised that right, except as to stand
ards for payment of customs. the
Legislation on the subject has all been
done by state legislatures. which &C
counts largely for the discrepanctes
between states. In 1913 congress
passed law requiring that the net
weight be stated on all packages or
other containers holding more tnan
two ounces avoirdupois, or more than
one liquid ounce.
In the United States bureau of
standards are held the original and
! official yardstick. pound and gallon
/, these are supplied by the bureau to
the several states and to institutions
requiring exact standards or meas
urement.
There Is bill now pending in
both branches of Congress-intro-
duced in the Senate by Senator Ladd
of North Dakota, and in the House
by Representative Britten of Illi-
nois-which will straighten out all
| confusion as to weights and meas
ures by substituting the metric sys-
! tenn for the complicated familiar
weights and measures now in use.
! This metric system is now useo IN
nearly all countries of the world ex-
10 Trif
Britain and their possessions. 1t Is
as much simpler than the old Welghts
! and measures as is our declnlai syS-
! tenn of dollars and cents simpler than
| the English sovereigns, pounds
| crowns, shillings, pence, half-pence
Similar bills were before Congress
| at the last session, when extensive
! hearings were held. The terms OF
/ the present measure are modified and
| experience given in those hearings
! If the bill is passed now 1t Will not
! go into effect until January l. 1888
! so that people with old mentality
' who cannot easily accept anything
! new, may gradually become familiar
with it's tables and terms. Even then
! the law exempts most things which
! the maker wants exempted, but there
! is expectation that it will finally su-
persede the present system entirely.
/ II + X
The chief objection to the new eys-
| TEN appears to be that 1t requires a
! change-not that the metric system
| is not simpler and more easily ham
died after one becomes familiar with
it.
| Much ado is made by it's critics over
tables showing how complicated
, he iy,f 10 Of
ent units into the metric equivalents
but the proponents reply that that is
| not a fair objection, for when the
metric system Is used the old units
J are not used, hence there would be
no such Interpretation from one to
| the other.
What is the metric system? What is
Its history? In 1901 the French adopt
ed as their unit of measure a meter,
which was calculated to be one-ten-
millionth of the distance from the
' north pole to the equator. Slbse-
| quently, it was found that the meas
ure of the astronomer was inaccurate
SO an arbitrary adjustment of the unit
| was made. The unit has no advantage
| over our standard unit-a yard-but
! it-always by tens or their multiple
wholly decimal-is what gives 1t all
the advantage Of ease in use.
Even weights are based upon the
F., linear measures. A gram is the
weight of a cubic centimeter of water
| at A degrees centrigrade-the great
| est density of water. A liter Is 10G
cubic grams. All calculations are
madesby moving the decimal point to
the right or left, just as moving the
decimal divides a dollar into cents
or combines cents into dollars.
/ Copyright, 1923. by Paul V. Collins.)