harmony with the French litre. That quart we
should then have for unit of the measure of
capacity.

From the litre or decimal quart, the unit of
weight is obtained by taking a thousandth part
of the weight of a litre of distilled water for
standard, and calling it a gramme: the weight of
the litre or new quart itself being thus under a
thousand grammes, or a kilogramme. A
kilogramme is rather more than two pounds
avoirdupois, and the gramme, or standard of French
weight, is a little under fifteen grains and a half.
The series of weights below the gramme, chiefly
concerns chemists and men of science; they
would hardly be used in commerce, except by
dealers in precious stones. To these weights,
therefore, the names of Latin composition,
decigramme, centigramme, milligramme, already in
use by men of science throughout Europe, can
most properly be applied. In commerce, for the
common unit of weight, it would be more
convenient to use than to avoid the not very
terrible word gramme, or, as we might English it,
gram. We might then better say ten gram, and a
hundred gram, than decagram or hectogram; but
as it would be inconvenient and unnatural to
refer weights of sugar, bread and cheese, and
matters of ordinary retail commerce, to a standard
of fifteen grains and a half, we might go a step
further and be content, accepting the Greek
prefix in the case of a thousand grammes, to
speak of that quantity, which, being about two
pounds, would serve as a common standard in
retail trade as a kilogram. That is to say, we
might do so if it were thought too confusing
after the total abolition of the chance medley of
existing weights and measures, to use the word
pound instead of kilogram. But it should not
be difficult to learn that such a new pound
represents about an ounce and a half more than
twice the quantity of the old one. At any rate,
whether we double the pound, or adopt the
kilogram, we would for higher measures of weight use
the word hundred-weight to represent a hundred
kilograms, or new pounds. The name would
explain itself, and be really less perplexing than it
now is. The next multiple of ten, it would be
quite convenient to call a ton. Twenty hundred-
weight, as pounds now go, are a ton, but of the
kilograms ten hundred-weight would leave the
ton very nearly what the arithmetic-books now
call it: that is to say, two thousand two hundred
and four of the old style pounds, instead of two
thousand two hundred and forty. The ton then,
by which we calculate so many things, could, by
merely reducing it a few pounds, be retained in
use, and, at the same time, brought into exact
harmony with the system of weights and
measures that are to be, and will surely be, sooner
or later, made uniform throughout Europe.

It is most certain that any such attempt to
naturalise the foreign system, or any attempt to
introduce it with all its original pedantry of
style, would only add confusion to confusion,
unless a limit were set to the days of the weights
and measures now in use. They should be
allowed to exist for at most a twelvemonth after
the introduction of the metrical system, and
during that time all the weights and measures,
newly introduced, would have to be named with
the little word new attached to them, while
they should be compared with the old methods
in little books of easy tables, under their right
name of "European" Measure.

When the metrical system is fully adopted,
we shall soon achieve for ourselves a decimal
coinage: thus simplifying to the highest degree
the accounts of trade, and making it easy for
the laziest man to inform himself how his affairs
stand. Attempts at simplification are already
made. Wholesale trade deals largely in dozens
and scores, because, for example, while there
are a dozen pence in a shilling, the price of a
dozen gloves at tenpence is known without
calculation to be ten dozen pence or shillings,
and while there are twenty shillings in a pound,
the price of a score of sheep at twenty-four
shillings apiece is known at once to be twenty-
four pounds. The decimal system would make
all ordinary business calculations as simple as
this.

SMALL-BEER CHRONICLES.

AND now to look at our previous subject from
another point of view; that, namely, of the
man who honestly desires to attain social
success by fair means, who wishes to make himself
agreeable to those with whom he is brought in
contact in a word, to be a gentleman, in the
highest acceptation of the word. What will his
views be about politeness?

Politeness in the main, he will think to
himself, is a thing of surface, and is entirely affected
as to its value by the worth or worthlessness of
what lies beneath it. A man may be a very good
man, and be very much wanting in politeness ;
or he may be very wicked and very polite.
When a good kind person is polite, his courtesy
is charming; but politeness and wickedness
together, make a very terrible combination. Is it
too much to say that, generally speaking,
excessive politeness is a bad sign, and that the
excessively polite man is either very bad or at
least very selfish? If he be actually bad, he uses
his politeness to hide his wickedness, and if he
be simply selfish, he uses it as a substitute for
deeds.

Politeness is one of the luxuries of life. The
fascination of it is irresistible. It is impossible
to speak of its charms in terms that are exaggerated,
though to speak in such terms of its value
would probably be easy. What is its value?

There seem to be two classes of persons in
whose composition politeness forms an important
ingredient: the man of only slightly marked
character, of a somewhat trivial nature, and
who, were he not characterised by this quality,
would have nothing else, and would lose all for
which you valued him — this is one man in whom
politeness is valuable, and the other is he who
is polite from philanthropy and kindness of