All the English world knows, or knows of, that branch
of the Civil Service which is popularly called the
Weights and Measures. Every inhabitant of London,
and every casual visitor there, has admired the handsome
edifice which generally goes by that name, and which
stands so conspicuously confronting the Treasury Chambers.
It must be owned that we have but a slip-slop way of
christening our public buildings. When a man tells
us that he called on a friend at the Horse Guards,
or looked in at the Navy Pay, or dropped a ticket
at the Woods and Forests, we put up with the accustomed
sounds, though they are in themselves, perhaps, indefensible.
The ’Board of Commissioners for Regulating Weights
and Measures’, and the ’Office of the Board
of Commissioners for Regulating Weights and Measures’,
are very long phrases; and as, in the course of this
tale, frequent mention will be made of the public
establishment in question, the reader’s comfort
will be best consulted by maintaining its popular
though improper denomination.
It is generally admitted that the Weights and Measures
is a well-conducted public office; indeed, to such
a degree of efficiency has it been brought by its
present very excellent secretary, the two very worthy
assistant-secretaries, and especially by its late
most respectable chief clerk, that it may be said to
stand quite alone as a high model for all other public
offices whatever. It is exactly antipodistic
of the Circumlocution Office, and as such is always
referred to in the House of Commons by the gentleman
representing the Government when any attack on the
Civil Service, generally, is being made.
And when it is remembered how great are the interests
entrusted to the care of this board, and of these
secretaries and of that chief clerk, it must be admitted
that nothing short of superlative excellence ought
to suffice the nation. All material intercourse
between man and man must be regulated, either justly
or unjustly, by weights and measures; and as we of
all people depend most on such material intercourse,
our weights and measures should to us be a source
of never-ending concern. And then that question
of the decimal coinage! is it not in these days of
paramount importance? Are we not disgraced by
the twelve pennies in our shilling, by the four farthings
in our penny? One of the worthy assistant-secretaries,
the worthier probably of the two, has already grown
pale beneath the weight of this question. But
he has sworn within himself, with all the heroism of
a Nelson, that he will either do or die. He will
destroy the shilling or the shilling shall destroy
him. In his more ardent moods he thinks that
he hears the noise of battle booming round him, and
talks to his wife of Westminster Abbey or a peerage.
Then what statistical work of the present age has shown
half the erudition contained in that essay lately
published by the secretary on The Market Price
Copyrights
The Three Clerks from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
