Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1874 — Weights and Measures. [ARTICLE]

Weights and Measures.

A correspondent of the Rural New Yorkersnys the imperial gallon (English) holds ten pounds of water, the United States gallon holds 8.339 pounds, and the New York gallon holds exactly eight pounds. It is a well-understood fact that the Constitution of the United States provides that Congress and Con gress alone shall have power to regulate the weights and measures usecFin this country. Congress has enacted that the gallon used in these United States shall contain exactly 231 cubic inches or 8.339 pounds of water, and when the State of New York passed a law providing for a gallon that would hold exactly eight pounds of water the wiseacres at Albany exceeded their pow'er and the law was unconstitutional and consequently null and void. There is but one standard gallon in the State of New York and that gallon is the - United States gallon. Before leaving this subject it may be well to, allude to the laws passed in the different States, declaring that the bushel shall contain so many pounds of different kinds of grain. It is a serious question whether these laws are-constitutional. We have no doubt that when a contract is made-for soirtany bushel? - of grain the courts would enforce the delivery of so many measures each of which should contain 2,150.42 cubic inches. The definition “ Illinois bushel” or “ lowa bushel” would, not affect this decision. Illinois, lowa and other States have no right to adopt a bushel which differs from that of the United States.