| Show tor for this SW POP THE METRIC SYSTEM utah is soon to start upon a new life tim in a short time the people of the territory will be called upon to assume the exclusive management of their public business and it will then be their privilege to devise and prescribe within tain limits the methods for the regulation of their af affairs lairs the most import ant instrument in all business public and private is the system upon which the qualities of matter described as distance volume weight and value are defined this fact has become thoroughly appreciated by modern civilization within fifty years practically every ver enlightened nation in existence haa 4 joined coined in some degree a general investigation of the subject subject with a view to the final adoption cd of a perfect international system of moneys weights and measures the united states was among the first to fully recognize the barbarous crudities of the ancient standards and to look to modern aven invention for something better it was indeed the founders ot of the republic who inaugurated the work of in this direction an emphatic testimony of that fact appears in the messages of president washington to congress Pl following lowing is is one of his utterances on this subject A uniformity in the weights and meta measures of the country is among the important objects submitted to you by the constitution and if it can be e derived from a standard at once invariable arid add universal must be no less honorable to the public councils than conducive to he ahe public convenience again aaen in 1821 mr adams said uniformity uniformity ot of weights veigh ts and meas ones permanent universal uniformity adapted edited to the nature of things to the physical organization and mo coial rat improvement provement pro ment of man would be a blessing of such transcend transcendent ant magnitude that if there existed upon earth a combination ot ol power and will adequate to accomplish the result by the ener energy of a ingle d ic act the being who should exer an we it would be among the greatest to the human 1 race the rha same statesman is author of the following owing eloquent eulogy upon the metric system illie the system a approaches U a aches to the ideal of uniformity applied to r Wf tints and measures and whether L destined to succeed or doomed to fail fai j will shed unfading glory upon the age in n which it was conceived and upon the nation by which its execution was attempted te and has been in part achieved in the progress ogress of its establishment ache there re it has as often been brought in conflict ati act with the laws of physical and moral ba nature ture with the impenetrability of matter and with the habits passions ju d ice s and necessities of man it r as undergone various important modi 1 1 lations tat ions it must undoubtedly submit it to others before it can look for universal 1 adoption fiut but if man upon thi the earth be an j provable improvable in N being ing it if that I 1 which was was the object of a V mars e mission which is the desire of N the philosopher the longing of the philanthropist the trembling hope of the christian is a blessing to which the futurity of mortal man has a claim ol of more than mortal promise it if the spirit of evil is before the final consummation of things to be cast down irom fron his dominion over men and bound in the chains of a thousand years the foretaste here of mans felicity then this system of instruments to accomplish aish all ail the changes ol of social and frien friendly commerce will furnish the links of sympathy between the inhabitants of the most distant regions the meter will surround the globe in use as well as in multiplied extension and one language of weights and measures will be spoken from the equator to the poles many methods and devices were pro posed by our revolutionary leaders with a view to a reformation but but none prevailed at that time in this country except the system of decimal money our table of mills cents dimes and dollars with its uniform ratio of ten was then determined and established by law and as will be seen later became a model for the international or metric system formulated some years after by the french republic A brief comparison of this decimal money system with the heterogeneous coinage of great britain will serve appropriately to illustrate the inestimable blessing which this one reform brought to our country here are the two tables money U 8 money 4 far farthings things x penny zo 10 mills mil x cent 1 ta pen niesi ip shilling zo cents hentsi cen tsi z dime 2 ao rh i 1 1 i pound 0 u n d ro 10 dim x dollar suppose one wishes to know how many farthings far things are contained iii in nine pounds on the one hand and HOW many mills are contained in nine dollars on the other in the first case he must reduce his bis pounds pound sto to shillings his shillings shilling sto to pence and finally his pence to farthings far things requiring three processes of multiplication lica tio n lirije wi with all the attendant mental ca calculations 1 cul cu a ia thus 9 pounds 80 20 to reduce 9 to the d denomination of mills it is is ISO simply necessary to write 12 down the 9 and add three ciphers which is equivalent 2160 to multiplying by ten three 4 times thus 99 9 mills farthings far fart things bings the english method requires there fore in this case the equivalent 0 of twenty figures including lines a and nd the mental process of eight multiplications whereas the same reduction is performed in united states money by the writing of four figures and with no mental exertion whatever in proportion as the amounts to be thus handled are larger than the example chosen the more enormous become the advantages of the decimal system and this is but one of the simplest of an infinite variety of examples that might bo be drawn from ordinary business transactions this simple comparison of the english money with the money of the united spates is in some respects the most forcible illustration which science af i fords of the contrast between chesem the t contrivances of the middle ages and the enlightened methods of modern civilization with the invention ot of the decimal money system the reform energies of our leaders le of that period seem to have taken a temporary relapse for it was left to the more volatile spirit of france to take up the work so splendidly begun and carry it on to perfection the great difficulty experienced by the agitators of a reform in weights and measures was in securing a unit of measurement which might be reproduced from nature in the event of losing the artificial standard the difficulty was finally overcome by the french who lor for the purpose of a standard calculated as they supposed the exact length of a quadrant of of the earths meridian of which they took the T part for a unit of measure the traction thus derived is equal to english inches and is known as the meter in the international metric table formulated upon it the reform made little progress among other nations for nearly half a acen century the rest of the world being disposed rather to criticize while france did the work in 1870 however the general interest became so great that an international luter national convention was arranged to meet at paris for the purpose of settling all doubts as to the stability of the metric system and to make any adjustment that might seem necessary to secure a harmonious approval practically every civilized nation was represented at this convention and its deliberations finally resulted in the establishment of the international bureau of weights and measures which held its meetings at paris and was supported by pro rats rata contributions from the powers participating the labors of the convention closed in 1875 with a formal tip approval ot the metric table as it now stands the system became at once the standard 8 of france and many of it the other powers who emphasized their acceptance cep tance by declaring all other weights and measures measures illegal other nations have one by one atnita imitated ted this example until the united states and england remain practically the only nations in europe and america that recognize the 0 old id standards this fact has been quoted noted as evidence that the people of S england angland and the united states do not want the metric system let us set see how much truth there is in such a conclusion cl As early as 1865 the house of commons which is peculiarly the mouth piece of the english people passed an act making the metric system the exclusive standard of great britain the house of lords with which the people hold virtually nothing in common promptly vetoed the bill another measure immediately took its place and became a law which legalized the metric table but permitted a continuance of the old standards this puerile measure was imitated by the united states congress in the following adt act it shall be lawful through out the united states of america to employ amplo y the weights and measures of the metric system and no contract or dealing or pleading leading in any came shall be deemed invalid or liable to objection because the weights or measures expressly referred to are or measures of the metric system the various heads of upon japon whose whew recommendations this compromise aromi law was passed and congress itself believed it would have the same effect as a bill to exclude the old systems from legal recognition the experience of nations from the first goes to show however that sweeping changes ot of popular custom have not as a rule been secured by compromise or temporary legislation that such legislation has failed thus far to bring to the people of england and the united states the inestimable benefits of the metric system is not good evidence that they were hostile to the reform it is a fact that the files of the committee on coinage weights and measures are loaded with I 1 petitions for a law that will make quick work of the change the colleges took advantage of the permissive law and all the old stand ards were promptly expelled from such institutions so that today all chemi cal and physical apparatus and scientific nomenclature nomenclature generally are based upon the metric system but bu t the merchants manufacturers and tradesmen who are property expected to supervise the nomenclature of commerce cannot operate reform in that manner they are in some sense the slaves ot of lisheid usages they must follow the dictates of custom or assume risks anat may destroy them utterly the merchant therefore though a supervisor of fashion cannot dictate a reform except with authority that not only permits but requires all competitors in the business to do likewise for this reason though every tradesman and every citizen oi 01 a state hold a sentiment in common it is not impossible for it to go with them to eterei eternity unrealized unless some voice of general general authority commands a harmon ous action so it has been with the people 0 e of the united states and ea england an in the matter df the metric system there has been no authoritative corn com mand given and so every man is waiting for his neighbor to move first in order to be sure that he is ot of the same mind on the subject thus it has happened that the two most progressive nations on the globe have been outclassed by countries which are yet scarcely eberg ed d from barbarism what this delay is costing can be estimated in part but the entire expense of it no man may ever know the leakage from at an imperfect system of weights and measures may come from incalculable places it is only where the losses are most prodigious that cost can be determined for instance in quo one report to congress a sub commit tee declared officially or intimated in a way that amounted to a declaration that a continuance of the weights and measures now in use was costing the country a year of student life lor for every boy and girl in the public schools the students of the salt lake schools alone are i xe ported at about here is a waste in in the assets of salt lake alone of ten thousand years of school expenses which anyone can calculate for tenses himself without much difficulty and from it he can make a fair eftim estimate te of the loss the territory at large is sustaining in the same direction I 1 give below the metric table to which is added the table of united states money for purposes of compari son U S money zo xo mills mil x cent zo xo hentsi dime xo io dim digesi x dollar linear measure i meter inches io 10 millimeters ami centimeter cm 10 centimeters x decimeter dm din io 10 deci decimeters decime meters x meter M io 10 meters Me z delameter Dek ameter dra dm io 10 Deka meters i hectometer hm 10 hectometers i kilometer km weights weil his i igra gram miss isa grains io 10 milligrams mg agi i centigram cf eg io 10 centi centigram gramT si i decigram dg io 10 deci decigrams decigram grams si x gram G io 10 grams gramli Gr amsi x De kagram dg io 10 Deka dekagrams grams x hectogram hg io 10 Hectogram grams si i kilogram kg 1000 kilograms Kilogram si i ton T volume 1 i lateri Li teri cubic dm 1 i qu quart artl io 10 millimeters milli leters ali centiliter el cl zo 10 i deciliter dl io 10 deciliter st liter L io 10 literski Li Deka liter IDI dl xo io x hectoliter HI zo 10 i kiloliter kl KI to establish the identity between the advantage of the metric table over the old ones and that of the table of united states money over english money as formerly illustrated I 1 copy herewith a few of the old tables for comparison linear or line measure surveyors Afe measure asure xa 12 inches x foot inches i link 3 feet aeeti ai yard links 23 i chain 5 yards i rod 80 80 chainski cha insi mile rods rod kodsi si z mile another linear table 6 aeeti fathom fathoms fat homsi 1 cable length common miles milesa mi lesl i geographical mile 3 geographical miles r league B or statute miles J this is one simple example of the heterogeneous character of the old measurements sure ments multiplying examples would scarcely make the jumble of figures more apparent or cause them to look more hideous to one who fully fulli comprehends the effect of such contusion confusion As an evidence of the monstrous extent to which this degradation has been carried I 1 have mr upton upion of the united states treasury for authority that in the en english 9 system of weights and measures there are no less than seventy six units in common use having fifty six names in the united states the prodigious elasticity of the term bushel affords a striking example of the yankee invention in creating chaos out of confusion in the report on the metric system to the united states senate 1879 mr upton has quoted a tabulation of the american bushel whose multitudinous variations cover two octavo pages in fine print president talmaye talmage of the university of utah in a recent lee lec ture on the subject elaborated the absurdities of our weights and measures in the following entertaining fashion in the common units of weight we have to deal with three separate tables I 1 each complicated in itself and bearing no simple relation to the other systems I 1 reler to the avoirdupois the troy and the weights these have but one unit in common the grain thus an avoirdupois contains 2 grains and an d ahrn 60 60 vains grains the troy pound contains 5 grains while an avoirdupois P pound ad consists consist of grains S such complications are rendered the more annoying by the provincial si sig 9 given given to terms of measurement in trade mat thus in great britain 2 large cod it hooked are sold by the score trawled brawled cod so much apiece and pickled cod by the barrel I 1 hae have no desire to exaggerate the eccentric basis of barter common among our transatlantic friends so cull the fol lowing facts ot of british trade from a comparatively recent arti le ie by an english writer mr cousins of leeds at grimsby an important |
