Wednesday was taken up in the C01111110/1s with a great
dis- cussion on a Bill which proposed the revolutionary step of making the French metric system compulsory on England, a proposal which, though the Government resisted it, was only negatived by a majority of 5 (82 to 77). The discussion showed clearly enough the real need for a uniformly decimal system of weights and measures in England ; but it also showed great -reason to doubt what the units of that system ought to be, whether those taken by the French or some of those now in use in England. Sir John Herschel preferred the English foot to the French metre, and the English ounce to the French gramme ; but as no practical statesman has yet proposed to take our foot and ounce as the basis of an English decimal system of lengths, weights, and (solid) measures,—with the pound, or measures of value, this has been proposed, and steps taken towards effecting it,—the authority of Sir John Herschel is used at present only to deter from the French system, rather than to help the solution of the difficulty. It may be that we shall come in the end to the metric system, and translate our old proverbs from "Give au inch and take an ell ;" "An ounce of souse is better than a pound of learning ;" into " Give a millimetre and take a centimetre," or " A gramme of
sense is better than a kilogramme of learning." But in the mean- time much has to be learnt and a good deal forgotten.
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