5 SEPTEMBER 1868, Page 3

The number of convictions in London during the past six

'months for using false weights and measures was 659. Admitting that a portion of these were convictions for giving too good -weight,—a frightful injustice still sanctioned by law,—we must -also remember that for every person convicted two escape. It will not be too much to say that at least 1,000 shopkeepers have been guilty in the last half-year of cheating unwary persons in the -dirtiest way in which it is possible to cheat them,—a nice proof of the morality of the middle class ! Among the whole of these men a ma- jority are church members, yet we have never heard of one being ex- pelled his church, or put under censure, or even questioned for any tmdetransactions. Why should he be? They do notprove that he does not believe in verbal inspiration, or election, or the right of every- body to elect his own clergyman, nor are they breaches of the law -of respectability, as, for example, attendance in chapel in shirt- sleeves would be. We know nothing worse in its way than the faculty quiet English respectables have of ignoring everything

all petty tradesmen denunciations of the it is committed by a householder. Make knights, and the papers would ring with thieves by name.