THE DECIMAL (NOT METRIC) SYSTEM.
[TO TEl Eorrox OP TEl " SPICTATOIS."]
San,—Your correspondents who are against a decimal system of coinage and weights on the ground that the unit under such a system is not divisible into thirds, twelfths, sixteenths, &c., out surely to explain why the same objection does not apply equally to our system of whole numbers. Bach figure represents ten times the value of the same figure on its immediate right. According to these objectors, it should be an intolerable inconvenience that we cannot express a third or sixteenth of ten in the form of a whole number; pfesumably they would prefer a system of duodecimals. Having, how- ever, adopted a decimal system for whole numbers, it seems perverse to change the system when we pass from whole numbers to fractions. Such a course could only be reasonably justified by a demonstration that the lengths of different parts of the human body are (1) generally used as measures ; (2) inter-related so as to preclude a decimal relation and justify another. The question as to -whether the metre should be substituted for the yard is an entirely separate one, and the only argument ever used for the change has been shown to be baseless.—I am, Sir, &c., G. H. B.
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