Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/357

Rh to decrease the effectiveness of the law. At a conference the senate refused to concur in the amendments and on account of the lack of time the bill failed of passage. Ten thousand copies of the reports of the Bureau of Standards, showing the necessity of inspection service and the extremely bad conditions existing were printed by the senate and with this assistance the bill became a law at the next session of the legislature.

There was also passed a net container law applicable "to food-stuffs and stuffs intended to be used or prepared for use as food for human beings "and" to any commodity intended to be eaten or drunk by human beings "; but it does not apply to commodities intended to be used solely for medicinal purposes or to a quantity of a commodity that is sold for less than eleven cents at retail. The act contains several provisions concerning the manner of marking the net weight, measure or numerical count, and fixes a minimum penalty for violation of $25 and a maximum of $500.

Colorado passed four laws on the subject of weights and measures at the 1913 session of its legislature, prior to which this subject had been a dead letter in Colorado for nearly a score of years. One of these laws gives the Public Utilities Commission power to examine and test all water, gas and electric meters; another requires persons or corporations engaged in business of mining and selling by weight to keep constantly on hand the necessary apparatus to correctly weigh their product, and provides for the annual inspection of such apparatus and makes further provision for the proper weighing of coal mined in the state; a third law requires that oleomargarine be put up in print form of one half, one, two, three, and five pound prints and in no other larger or small subdivisions, and sets forth other restrictions regarding the marking of the weight; and the fourth law provides against the false reading or manipulation of the Babcock test for milk and cream.

Connecticut passed a most excellent law including nearly all the provisions recommended by the conference for general legislation, and also requiring the net contents to be stamped on the outside of all original containers of food.

Delaware passed two laws; one requiring that a standard ton of coal shall consist of 2,240 pounds and providing a heavy penalty for violation, and the other law specifies standard cups, hampers, baskets, barrels, etc., to be used in shipping berries, fruit and produce. The latter law is not mandatory, but permits the use of other size containers when properly marked with the amount that they contain.

Florida failed to pass any general legislation requiring inspection service, but this state distinguished itself by amending its pure food law so as to require that the net contents of all original packages should be "conspicuously, legibly, and correctly stated" in terms of weight or measure, on the outside of each package.