A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator, 16 May 18681-The second reading of Mr. Ewart's Bill introducing the metric system was carried on Wednesday by a vote of 217 to 65, an extraordinarily heavy vote, con- sidering that the majority of the House know no more about the metric system than about the differential calculus. Mr. Ewart proposes that after a certain number of years the French measures shall be introduced bodily, nomenclature and all. He was opposed by Mr. Beresford Hope on some- what novel ground. He argued, of course, against the expediency of a change which would greatly embarrass the ignorant and the poor, but also read a letter from Sir John Herschel, asserting that the British standards of measure and weight are, on the whole, more scientific than the French. The English foot is within 1,000th part of an absolute geometrical foot; our English ounce is exactly 1,000th part the weight of a geometrical cubic foot of distilled water at a temperature of 72'; and our half-pint it precisely ten mites of water. The benefit of international weights and measures is very small, and we altogether object to forcible changes of the kind, unless their utility, as in the matter of decimal coinage, is very great indeed.
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