Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/361

Rh capacities with the usual tolerances, and contains most of the other provisions of the milk bottle section of the model law.

Maryland completely revised its statutes on the subject of weights and measures and the new law provides for a complete system of county and city inspection, under the salary system. The most serious defect in this law is the omission to provide any state supervision whatever. It has been found in the past that without some state officer to assist the local sealers, the enforcement of any law is lax and unsatisfactory and it remains to be seen whether Maryland can succeed where so many states have heretofore been unsuccessful.

Massachusetts made several important additions to the statutes during the past three years. In 1911 two laws were added in relation to the cranberry barrel and other packages and to the weight of a barrel of potatoes. In 1912 the list of legal weights per bushel for fruits and vegetables was amended and amplified and it was provided that all fruits and vegetables for which a legal weight was established should be sold only by numerical count or by weight, thus eliminating the use of the dry measure for a very large number of important commodities. At the last session of the legislature a determined effort was made to nullify this law and to reintroduce the old method of selling by measure, a bill being introduced to this effect. This passed the lower house but was defeated in the senate; so the ground gained has not been lost. The second important amendment was the passage of a bill making it unlawful to sell any commodity by any other weight than the net weight of the commodity. It is believed that the sale of commodities by gross weight can be prevented, regardless of any statement to the contrary, under the terms of this law. The abuse of charging retailers and consumers for wooden cores, backsticks, heavy burlap and paper wrappings, cord, etc., at the price of the commodity itself upon the strength of a statement upon the invoice or delivery ticket that the delivery is made "gross weight," may thus be eliminated in this state by a competent enforcement of this law. Other bills were also enacted requiring the measuring by sworn city or town officials of all leather sold by measure; and the testing and sealing or condemning of all machines used in the measuring of leather. On account of the very large shoe manufacturing industries in this state this subject is of very great importance here.

Michigan enacted legislation at the last session which was based directly on the model law. Some of the sections were adopted practically intact while others were amended in important particulars, these amendments in nearly every case, however, tending to weaken the original law. The state dairy and food commissioner is, by virtue of his office, the state superintendent of weights and measures for the state. His deputy is likewise deputy state superintendent of weights and measures and all inspectors in the dairy and food department are state inspectors of weights and measures as well. The next important amendment apparently prevents