Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/360

356 baskets in place of the dry measure which has heretofore been the universal standard for these commodities. A provision of the general law which has been found to be very obnoxious is the provision requiring the collection of fees for services rendered by the sealers of weights and measures. So firmly, however, is the fee system engrafted on the state that cities passing ordinances are not allowed to abolish them, but must always make the collections demanded. We are informed by the state officials that this requirement is the greatest stumbling block in the path of establishing a really efficient inspection service and eliminating faulty weights and measures from the commerce of the state.

Three other laws were passed at the last session of the legislature: one requires railroads to provide scales for weighing live stock at all stations where as many as 50 carloads of live stock were received for shipment during each of the preceding two years; another requires the net weight to be marked on commercial feeding stuffs; and a third law requires similar marking for live stock remedies.

The law passed in Louisiana provides for the inspection of weights and measures in the city of New Orleans only. The city is divided into two inspection districts for which two inspectors are to be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate, for a term of four years. Fees are to be collected for testing and sealing apparatus, but the inspectors are placed on a salary basis. Trade weights and measures are to be inspected and sealed annually, and it is made unlawful to use such apparatus without being inspected and sealed. Itinerant peddlers and hawkers using weighing and measuring instruments are required to bring them to the office of the inspector to be adjusted and sealed before using them, and to have the same adjusted and sealed annually. The law includes several provisions contained in the model law recommended by the National Conference on "Weights and Measures. Another act was passed requiring ice wagons to be equipped with weighing devices, making it unlawful to charge and collect for a greater amount of ice than actually delivered to the consumer, under penalty of fine or imprisonment.

Maine passed one general and two special laws on the subject at the last session of the legislature. The general law is in the nature of amendments to the former statutes of the state, passed principally at the 1911 session, and adds a great deal to the strength of these laws. The major portion of the changes are based on sections of the model law recommended by the National Conference on Weights and Measures. A berry box section was included which requires all boxes for berries holding one quart or less to be of the capacities of one quart, one pint or one half pint, standard dry measure. The section specifying the weights per bushel of commodities has been extensively revised. An act relative to sealing milk bottles and jars requires these to be of standard