Genre:

Regular Feature, Reportage, Drollery

Subjects:

Measurement, Metrology, Government, Politics, Nationalism

    Discusses a bill to establish the metric system in Britain. Laments the large number of existing systems of weights and measures and considers the 'incessant torture which a compulsory measure of this sort would inflict upon the ignorant and semi-ignorant'. Believes it would 'bring on a Revolution'—possibly an allusion to the Paris Commune of 1871. Points out that Jewish people have several systems of weights and measures but supports Alexander J B B Hope's statement that he had 'no objection to a uniform system, if foreigners found inconvenience in the present state of things', but insists that the system be an English one. (43)