See PNEUMATICS, No. 14—19.

Regulation of WEIGHTS and MEASURES, is a branch of the king's prerogative. See PREROGATIVE and MEASURE.

As weight and measure are things in their nature arbitrary and uncertain, it is therefore expedient that they be reduced to some fixed rule or standard: which standard it is impossible to fix by any written law or oral proclamation; for no man can, by words only, give another an adequate idea of a foot rule, or a pound weight. It is therefore necessary to have recourse to some visible, palpable, material standard; by forming a comparison with which all weights and measures may be reduced to one uniform size; and the prerogative of fixing this standard, our ancient law vested in the crown, as in Normandy it belonged to the duke. This standard was originally kept at Winchester: and we find in the laws of King Edgar, near a century before the Conquest, an injunction that the one measure, which was kept at Winchester, should be observed throughout the realm. Most nations have regulated the standard of measures of length by comparison with the parts of the human body; as the palm, the hand, the span, the foot, the cubit, the ell (ulna or arm), the pace, and the fathom. But as these are of different dimensions in men of different proportions, our ancient historians inform us, that a new standard of longitudinal measure was ascertained by King Henry the First; who commanded that the ulna, or ancient ell, which answers to the modern yard, should be made of the exact length of his own arm. And one standard of measure of length being gained, all others are easily derived from thence; those of greater length by multiplying, those of less by dividing, that original standard. Thus, by the statute called compositio ulnorum et perticarum, five yards and a half make a perch; and the yard is subdivided into three feet, and each foot into 12 inches; which inches will be each of the length of three grains of barley. Superficial measures are derived by squaring those of length; and measures of capacity by cubing them. The standard of weights was originally taken from corns of wheat, whence the lowest denomination of weights we have is still called a grain; 32 of which are directed, by the statute called compositio mensurarum, to compose a pennyweight, whereof 20 make an ounce, 12 ounces a pound, and so upwards. And upon these principles the first standards were made; which, being originally so fixed by the crown, their subsequent regulations have been generally made by the king in parliament. Thus, under King Richard I., in his parliament holden at Westminster, A.D. 1197, it was ordained that there should be only one weight and one measure. measure throughout the kingdom, and that the custody of the assize, or standard of weights and measures, should be committed to certain persons in every city and borough; from whence the ancient office of the king's assuigner seems to have been derived, whose duty it was, for a certain fee, to measure all cloths made for sale; till the office was abolished by the statute 11th and 12th William III. c. 22. In King John's time this ordinance of King Richard was frequently dispensed with for money; which occasioned a provision to be made for enforcing it, in the great charters of King John and his son. These original standards were called *pondus regis* and *mensura domini regis*, and are directed by a variety of subsequent statutes to be kept in the exchequer chamber, by an officer called the *clerk of the market*, except the wine gallon, which is committed to the city of London, and kept in Guildhall.

The Scottish standards are distributed among the oldest boroughs. The elwand is kept at Edinburgh, the pint at Stirling, the pound at Lanark, and the firloit at Linlithgow.

Various statutes have been enacted for regulating and enforcing an uniformity of weights and measures; and by the articles of union, the English standards are established by law over all Great Britain. But the force of custom is so strong, that these statutes have been ill observed. The Scottish standards are still universally retained for many purposes; and likewise a variety of local weights and measures are used in particular places of both countries, which differ from the general standards of either. A report was made by a committee of the House of Commons on the subject of weights and measures, 24th June, 1819, recommending alterations of a very limited nature; but nothing farther has been done.