The Metric System.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXI, Issue 12480, 17 September 1904, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Metric System.

On Saturday last a cablegram from Melbourne was published*, in the "Tiniaiu Herald." stating that " An Imperial despatch respecting the metric system expresses a doubt whether it would be .practicable to make the system compulsory in Britain." After considering the advisableness of adopting the metric system, for close on 100 years, the Imperial Government have now, says a Home paper, finally decided to abolish the present system of weights and Measures in the United Kingdom, and to substitute those of the metric system. Back in 1862 a House of Commons Committee favoured the change; but, although it has been, four times before Parliament, it was only last Febiuary that the House of Lords passed the Bill making the system compulsory in two years' time, and at present a select committee are arranging the necessary details. A terrible upheaval will shake the country as the day approaches when the Government will ring out the old and I'ing in the new systems of weights and measures. Every shop and every factory where scales are used will have to discard the old weights, for there will no longer be any ton, or hundredweight, or pound, or ounce. Drapers, and those who sell by length, may snap their yard-sticks and burn their tape measures, for the yard and its subdivisions' will be as (lead as Queen Anne. "Road maps, charts, mid 'cyclometers will be useless, for we shall no * longer tjpeak of miles, but of kilometres. The barrels, casks, and p«wter pots of Bung tie Brewer will be obsolete.

Dictionaries, encvclopiedias, and almanacs will ba hopalc-sly wrong. The weighing machines at oi.i inihviiy stations will ait be untruthful, air in 11 couplo ol yearn wo Khali not weigh tit ones but kilos. bven the coins tlmt have nerved ho long will be swept away—though not perhaps at first—in this peaceful revolution, to be leplaced by others of different names and, probably, slightly different values. Our French neighbour decided to adopt the metric system in 1790, at a time when change was certainly tho order of the day with tliein. Practically tho whole of tho civilised world followed suit—even Turkey. Great Britain, Russia nijd the United -States alone have clung to their old-fashioned and clumsy system of weightß and measures.

What is the metric system, which will play such havoc in two years' time with out present standards? Putting aside all ugly-looking mathematical expressions, we may say that tho metric system is a system of reckoning in tens. Instead of saying there are 16 ounces in a pound, 28 pounds in a quarter, 4 quarters in a hundredweight, and 20 hundredweight in a ton, we shall advanco by tens from, one weight to the next. It will bo just as though we should say 10 ounces in a pound, 10 pounds in a quarter, 10 quarters in a hundredweight, 10 hundredweights in ft ton — only, of course, we shall iiofc use these terras, and tho weights will not be the same. Tho beauty of this system iB best appreciated by those engaged in commerce, in offices, and last, but not least, by the schoolboy. Ask an office boy how many ounces there are in 56 tons, and he has to bend his head (or five or ten minutes over a piece of paper, making calculations, which likely enough may be wrong. Ask a French boy. how many grammes in 56,000 kilos and he will rattle off the answer befoie the last word has left your mouth; for, as everyono knows, multiplying and dividing by tens merely amounts to adding on or taking off noughts at the end of « number, or, to be more exact, in shifting the decimal point. Probably the more or less happy schooldays of most of our lenders »ire wrapped in oblivion. Yet, if they attended an elementary school they will perhaps remember that in Standard iV. the course of arithmetic was practically confined lo reduction of all the weights and measures. Our children now take a wholor year to learn what those who come after them will learn in a -week, and if all these advantages fail to convince our conservative renders let them consider bow our vast commerce will become yet vaster when wc toe tho line with other nations, and no longer handicap our trade by buying and selling and quoting goods _on terms aud quantities strange and ridiculous to all eyes but our own. In fact. Lord Kosebery says that the metric system will do far more lor the trade of the Kinpirc than any change in the fiscal relations of the Empire. [The Imperial despatch indicates that tho matter is not to be pressed.]

An Eye-Witness of Waterloo.

Tbero is still living at the little village of Cliapclle, within eyeshot of the meetingp'.nc.e of Wellington and Blucher, n peasant woman, aged 103, who as a girl of 13 «aw some of the lighting nt Waterloo. A representative of tlio Paris "I'atiio" recently visited her nt the home wliich she -hares * with her two sons, aged 80 and 78. Describing her recollection of the great events that occurred on June 18th, 90 years ago, she said : "As a little girl, stirred and fascinated by the long lines of horsemen, guns and •iied foot regiments passing our cottage, I stood at our door and served out water to the beaux soldats. Afterwards I followed them to Waterloo. In the evening ivc heard tl\p booming of great cannon, and from the windows I could see the -louds of smoke rising into the air like :r<es. I was in the null, and the windows rattled. All night long we heard the iratnp of silent men and the creaking, tumbling guns passing our doors. When I looked out next morning I saw wounded irfen lying by tlio roadside. In ,the distance I could hear a sonnd like a rough .sea breaking against the rocks. There were clouds of smoke, and I saw men galloping, and masses of brave soldiers moving hurriedly across the fields. " Then the doctors came and took out he bullets from the wounds of the soldiers. The Prussians came by, and then the Kngish, shouting their cries of victory. Not ar awav soldiers were digging trenches ; n our nbldn to bury the dead. There were so many of them, so many of them " —and the old peasant covered her face •villi her hands as though to shut out the terrible picture. " I saw one woman ■>f Gotarville cut off the fingers of a' Prussian officer, sorely hurt but still living, to secure the jewelled rings that ho wore. \t Planchenoit, a little further away, they 'ell me, the brave French were so beaten down by bayonet charges that the liver ■an witii blood. Neav the hill above u U'neral was killed.

" No, I did not see Napoleon, and I •lill regret it. Poor Napoleon. . . We : id not'like the Knglish or the Prussians. . . The next day wc knew that Napo oii'i'm power wan broken by the lines wo icard the people singing."