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Show j HONEST WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. i : A long time ago we knew a grocery keeper who ' always gave ' easterners the exact weight of whatever they bought. A story was told of him I that he would not only break a cracker in two to . get his scales balanced, but that he would oven break one of the halves in two in order to make I the beam stand at the exact center. This old chap I got a reputation among his customers as a penu- 4 rious old wretch; in ibis day he would be called a 1 grouch. He was trying to be honest. And after I some forty or fifty years of active business be re- I tired with a modest fortune of about $10,000 to leave 1o his heirs. Since then the grocery store I has born run by more up-to-date business men. I They clear some $10,000 a year now on a business I not a great deal farger than that conducted by the old man. They don't break any crackers in two. though, in their efforts to get the correct, weight. Nowadays we have laws and regulations con-corning con-corning the weight of weights and the size of mcas- tires. The superintendent of the department of I weight;- and measures cf the state of New York I has estimated that the consumers of his state were f robbed of $20.OOO.Oi)0 by small measures and short weights last year. The national pure food law ha? I done somclhing toward making labels on foods tell I f the truth, and it compels the stamping of the eor- l rect weight on packages. There should be equal ' insistence on enToet wciffht nf products bought s. 1 ' "-should i ic w v . - -- - ' - u should t - . be 2.000 pounds, not 1,700 or l,S0O. and a loaf of i bread should have the weight specified on it, with the proportion of flour. We don't need any more j laws; what we need is a little more honesty, like that of the old grocer who quartered crackers in order not to cheat himself or bis customers. |