NOVEL EXHIBITION.
A GRATUITOUS exhibition has been opened in the Town-hall of Manchester, as curious as it is unexampled ; an exhibition of all the false weights and measures seized by the Manchester Police. The editor of the Manchester Courier suggests, that, like exhibi- tions of painting and sculpture, it ought to be annual ; and that the names of the parties who used the weights and measures should be affixed to them; as those of artists are to their works. There are other false weights and measures, of which such an annual exposé might be useful. For example—the standard by which the Duke of Richmond measures the importance and le- gality of the Protection Societies and Anti-Corn-law League. Other fraudulent measures are either too long or too short, but this is both : like axles which have been prepared to suit both the broad and narrow gauge railways, it is constructed on the telescopic principle—pushed in when the Protectionists are to be measured, and pulled out before it is applied to the League. The standard by which O'Connell measures the good-will of English- men to Ireland : this is the most monstrous case on record of a long measure used to reduce the apparent bulk of an object. The weights by which Americans try their own weight in the balance of civilized nations : a case of fifty-sixes ingeniously hollowed. To these might be added Whig measures of Peel and of them- selves ; the measure taken by literary coteries of those who belong or who do not Wong to their clique ; measures taken by profes- sional men of the importance to society of their own pursuits, and so on. By adopting the hint of the Blanchester editor, and affixing to all these false weights and measures the names of the delinquents using them,politicians, artists, authors, &c., might be shamed into candour and decency.
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