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a gun, that a man is a gentleman. And after all, this is one of the least expensive modes, which an Englishman adopts to prove his claims to that condition. Men seldom go to parliament for the mere purpose of speaking for their constituents, inasmuch as the members of the house of commons have constituents in a more enlarged sense than the members of the American congress, because from the circumstances of our country, there is a much greater variety of interests in it, requiring more specific representation. It often happens, however, that instructions are sent in relation to certain priviliges and customs, by virtue of which members of the house of commons are forced to speak; as was most particularly the case in relation to the slave trade. There is, notwithstanding, as we observed above, a class of members whose sole object is the honor and dignity of a seat in parliament. They care little in what way they get there; and being there, have no particular constituents, whose interests they are called to defend. They have not, as with us, each thirty five thousand constituents, who can reward them with their approbation and often with state offices, whereby such weight is acquired at home, that the national government is forced to extend its patronage to them:-by which circuitous process many a member of congress, who would be immediately defeated on the floor of the house in any attempt to gain influence by taking an active part in the debates, is still enabled by means of long speeches painfully composed and delivered, and diligently printed and distributed through the post office,-to acquire or sustain that popularity among his constituents, which shall send him up to the executive government, clothed in all the importance of a powerful local interest.

Another peculiarity of the English house of commons is, that a division takes place every night; and though such a subject as the Missouri question might be renewed for twenty nights successively, in committee on the state of the nation, yet there is always a certain degree of variety, freshness, and animation, produced by a knowledge, that a decision is about to take place. This peculiarity is a consequence of that which we have mentioned. The third peculiarity is, and it is one which will always make greater orators than we are likely to have in this country, because they will always have more experience, that men of great promise and ambition can enter the house of commons at the age of twenty one;

an age at which an individual seldom can enter even a state legislature in this country. Fox was chosen to the house before he was twenty, Pitt before he was twenty two.

Again, parliament is a profession, and a man becomes as skilful and as much attached to it, as to that vocation by which he earns his bread. The distinguished men in the house of commons remain there twenty and thirty years, and many of them as long as they live. The consequence of this is, that they not only become greater men themselves, but learn to do the business of the nation with greater despatch. We believe that the members from Virginia and South Carolina remain in congress longer than those from the New England states, where an opposite policy, either arising from the caprice of the people, or the circumstances of the candidate, prevails to a fatal degree. We may also observe, that all the distinguished English statesmen from the time of Queen Anne, appear to have been accomplished scholars, and particularly well versed in the Latin language. This was especially the case with the Pitts, father and son, though the practice of quoting Latin in parliament is much diminished, and we have seen it stated by a person of great experience in those matters, that Mr Pitt did not make more than a dozen citations from the classics, in the whole course of his ministry.

ART. XI.-Report upon Weights and Measures. By John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State of the United States. Prepared in obedience to a resolution of the Senate of the 3d of March 1817. Svo. pp. 245. Washington.

To one who has never had occasion to turn his attention to the history and philosophy of weights and measures, it may appear surprising that the subject should have called for all the learning, and research, and wisdom, displayed in this work. Though foreign to the ordinary duties of a statesman, the senate of the United States seem to have been fully aware of the importance and difficulty of the question before them, and of the qualifications for treating it of the distinguished individual to whom they referred it; and we deem it matter of great congratulation, that congress have, by their prudence and caution, hitherto escaped the evils into which other gov

ernments have so often been betrayed by unwary and precipitate measures; and that they have at length, in this ample and elaborate document, the means of acting with a more enlarged and more just view of the subject, than has fallen to the lot of any other legislative body.

There are, we think, few subjects of legislation that impose a severer responsibility upon the supreme authority of a state, than that under consideration. An army, a navy, a revenue, &c., call for measures of a comparatively restricted application, and measures whose operation is, for the most, silent and unobserved. But a new regulation, with regard to weights and measures, extends to almost every individual of a community, and controls him in his daily business, and in his habitual transactions with others. It is difficult to conceive how a despot could make his power felt more generally and constantly, or more vexatiously, than by requiring new systems of weights and measures. So, on the other hand, there are few subjects on which some authoritative regulation is more clearly and indispensably necessary, and in which a wise government can more certainly and more effectually promote the cause of justice and fair dealing among a people.

In a reformation of the existing system of weights and measures, which has been repeatedly called for in this, as well as in other countries, several essential changes have been proposed. It has been thought, in the first place, highly important to refer all our measures to some natural standard, that shall remain immutable amid the revolutions to which human things are liable, and which may be recovered when all artificial measures shall be lost or impaired. It is true, that the measures now in use were originally taken from nature; but they were taken from objects in themselves variable. Most measures of length, as the foot, the cubit, the span, the fathom, were borrowed from the human body. The reason of this is evident. Measures were originally employed with direct reference to the human person. They were to be applied almost exclusively to articles of clothing and shelter, or to instruments of war and the chase, and which of course were to be used about the person, and to be adapted to it, in their dimensions and physical qualities. The pace, or length of a single step, was intended for spaces of greater extent, and a mile, as the name imports, was an abridged expression for a thousand of these paces. But when it was found necessary to

compare these different lengths with each other, an inconvenience must have arisen from having so many independent measures, and from their not being of a determinate magnitude. It was a great improvement, therefore, and one which probably took place at an early period, to consider some one of these measures as fixed and unalterable, and instead of measuring one thing with the breadth of the hand, and another with the length of the foot, and another with the two arms extended, to refer all these different independent lengths to the same assumed standard, and to regard them as exact parts or multiples of this standard. The measure, thus adopted, has been in some instances the cubit, or extent from the elbow to the end of the middle finger, in others the yard, but most generally the foot. The measure known by this latter name has been different at different times, and in different places, and though it was originally borrowed from the length of the human foot, is now purely conventional, and does not admit of being restored in the event of its being lost.

By a natural standard we mean one that is constant, and capable of being determined with precision. Several of this description have been suggested, as the pendulum beating seconds, a certain part of the diameter or circumference of the earth, the space described by a falling body near the surface of the earth, &c. The pendulum has been often recommended, and would seem to be particularly adapted to this purpose, on account of the facility and exactness with which its length can be determined. But there are several circumstances, not

*The yard, or girth,' is thought to be a measure of Saxon origin, derived, like those of the Hebrews and the Greeks, from the human body, but, as a natural standard, different from theirs, being taken not from the length or members, but from the circumference of the body. The yard of the Saxons evidently belongs to a primitive system of measures different from that of Greeks, of which the foot, and from that of the Hebrews, Egyptians, and Antediluvians, of which the cubit, was the standard. It affords, therefore, another demonstration, how invariably nature first points to the human body, and its proportions, for the original standards of linear measure. But the yard being for all purposes of use, a measure corresponding with the ulna, or ell, of the Roman system, became, when superadded to it, a source of diversity, and an obstacle to uniformity in the system. The yard, therefore, very soon after the Roman conquest, is said to have lost its original character of girth; to have been adjusted as a standard by the arm of king Henry the First; and to have been found or made a multiple of the foot, thereby adapting it to the remainder of the system; and this may, perhaps, be the cause of the difference of the present English foot from that of the Romans, by whom, as a measure, it was introduced." Report, &c. p. 21.

apparent at first view, which materially affect its claims to this distinction. It requires to be of different lengths in different latitudes, in order to vibrate seconds, and it is of great importance to its general adoption, that the standard should be equally suited to all places on the earth. Besides this, the pendulum involves the consideration of time, and the arbitrary division of the day into eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds, and if the loss of measures at any future time should be attended with the loss of the present manner of dividing the day, it would still be impossible to recover them.

After much inquiry and discussion, it has been thought by those best qualified to judge, that a certain portion of the meridian of the earth affords the best standard that nature

offers us. It can be determined with sufficient accuracy. It is common to all the inhabitants of the earth. By means of it, all our journeys and voyages are estimated in certain proportional parts of the whole circuit of the globe; and the territories and countries, which we have occasion to survey, are directly compared to the entire surface of the planet we inhabit. We might also mention, that by adopting the same decimal scale for the quadrant of a circle, absolute distances and degrees upon the earth's surface would be immediately known the one from the other.

Another object proposed by the advocates for reform is, that there should be only one weight, and one measure, under the same name. At present a pound, an ounce, a dram, mean each different things, according to the article to be weighed; and a gallon of wine is one quantity, and a gallon of beer is another, and a gallon of corn is another. It would seem that only one unit of weight is necessary for all articles that are to be weighed, and only one unit of capacity for all such as are estimated by bulk. It would, moreover, be a great convenience to have the several kinds of coin represent different established weights, so that weights and coins might be mutually standards and checks to each other.

But one of the principal inconveniences of the existing system of weights and measures arises from the arbitrary manner, in which the different denominations proceed. Thus, three barley corns make an inch, twelve inches a foot, three feet a yard, five and a half yards a pole, forty poles a furlong, and eight furlongs a mile. The denominations of weight and capacity are equally anomalous and ill adapted to calculation. New Series, No. 9.

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