152
served at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and a
fourth to be immured in a wall of the Houses of
Parliament ; and it declares the distance specified
above between the lines on the gold plugs to be the
British yard, and provides that, if any of the
copies be lost or destroyed, it is to be restored by
reference to those remaining.

Thus it will be seen that, after all, the question

tifie manner: all that we can say is that it is a
by Act of Parliament, and the length of which is

unit of linear extension.

A word, in conclusion, upon the course by
which the accuracy of the legal standard diffuses
itself among the people. The entire custody and
control of the standards of length, weight, and
capacity, has lately been transferred from the
Exchequer to the Board of Trade. An officer
called the “ Warden of Standards” is at the head
of an organized standard department.
pares and verifies the standard bars, &c., which are

scattered all over the country in the hands of local |

inspectors, clerks of markets, &c.; and the law |
a |

now compels these local standards to be re-verified

every five years. Rule and scale makers derive
standards of their own from the local standards,
and thus supply the public with accurate measures.
In some places standards are exposed pro bono
publico. Outside the Greenwich Observatory there
is a plate with projecting plugs setting off exactly
the yard, two feet, one foot, and six-inch measures.
There are similar “mural standards,” as they are
termed, in Bunhill Row, London, and others are
soon to be set up, together with longer measures
for the purpose of testing surveyors’ chains. The
Government is making up for its long neglect of
the people’s need of accurate standards; and we
may hope that the ordinance of the Magna Charta
“that there should be one measure and one weight
throughout the land,” is rapidly becoming some-
thing more than a mere tradition.

ee

Tue WEARINESS oF Siaut-SEEING.—I am sure that
those secular philanthropists, who advocate the opening of
the British Museum on the Day of Rest, cannot have tested
the proposal in their own persons. There is something in the
atmosphere of the place which, in a very short time, develops
unexpected possibilities of lumbago, depression, general
debility, and all the evils which Du Barry offers to cure with
his delicious “Revalenta Arabica’? For hard, exhaustive,
subduing work, commend me to the British Museum. I
wonder that some of our ingenious legislators have not sug-
gested its use in the matter of criminal reform. Send a few
gangs of our surplus stock of felons for a month or two to
the British Museum, request them to move on slowly about
twelve hours a day, and I am sure that those who survive
will never expose themselves to such a punishment again.

—— ee eeeesesesessesSSSSSsSF

APPRENTICESHIPS TO THE SEA SERVICE.

“What is a yard?” can be answered in no scien- |
measure on a bar which has been declared a yard |

merely traditional and referable to no natural |

He com- |

APPRENTICESHIPS TO THE SEA-SERVICE.—(Lvtract from
Cireular No. 501, Board of Trade.)—The Board of Trade
think it right to point out to the friends and relatives of boys
and persons seeking employment at sea, as well as to the
owners and agents of ships, that by the 141st Section of
“The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854,” all Superintendents of
Mercantile Marine Offices are required to give to “persons
desirous of apprenticing Boys to the Sea-Service, and to
Masters and Owners of Ships requiring Apprentices, such
assistance as is in their power for facilitating the making of
such apprenticeships.” The Board of Trade regard this as
one of the most important duties thrown by the Legislature
on Superintendents ; and, in order to carry the intention of
the Statute into effect, each Superintendent is directed to
keep two registers,—one containing a clear and methodical
record of the names, ages, addresses, and other particulars
received by them with respect to boys seeking employment at
sea, the other containing the names of Owners who are
desirous of obtaining boys for their ships.

It is important that Owners and Agents should be aware of
this arrangement, so that when they require the services of
boys or youths they may apply directly to a Superintendent
of a Mercantile Marine Office instead of a Slop-seller or other
person not authorized by law to procure employment for
seamen.

To widows (who appear to be frequently deceived by persons
styling themselves Shipping Agents or Agents for supplying
seamen, but who in reality gain their livelihood by plundering
the unwary or ill-informed) and to all other persons having
the charge of boys and wishing to apprentice them to the sea-
service, the Board of Trade would point out that the authorized
Superintendents at the Government Mercantile Marine Offices
(there is one at every Port), who will register the boys’ names
as applying for employment, have more facilities for finding
employment at sea for a boy than any other person, and are
besides the only persons who can legally receive any remunera-