The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1881.

Kumara Times, Issue 1620, 6 December 1881, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1881.

The old farce of appointing an Inspector of Weights and Measures for the Borough of Kumara, has again been reproduced. A notification appears in the last number of the New Zealand Gazette, which declares that Sergeant Soren Christopher William MolJer has been appointed to the office referred to. In the name of common sense, what can an Inspector of Weights and Measures do without the standard weights arid measures to go by 1 There is only tine standard set in Westland, and, we believe, upon the West Coast, and this set is carefully kept in seclusion in some obscure corner of Hokitika. As a mere matter of fact it may be stated that upon the day and hour when the late Mr Rowland Davis was cruelly hunted out of his oflice by certain persons upon whose toes he had trodden in the honest discharge of his duty; there has really been no inspection of weights and messuies in this country. That this state of affairs should be permitted to continue, is something radically wrong. A great and continuous wrong is being inflicted upon every one in the community except wholesale dealer.*, who naturally have the means at their disposal to guard against any injury to themselves from the use of fraudulent weights and mesures. Sergeant Soren Christopher William Moller will have a busy time of it if he merely makes an attempt to carry out the work which by a ridiculous fiction, is placed before him. How many battered pewter pots will he have to " fix up.?" How many weighing machines will he find which register a hundred-weight, when ten or twenty per cent, should be taken off? How many sets of ordinary scales, will he discover which deal out to the retail customer of small menus three-quarters of a pound, inste-ul of a fall one 1 How many cloth-y-ird measures will he find "crooked?" How many steelyards and spring-balances will he find which can be made to indicate any weight at pleasure ? And where, oh where, will the newly-ap-pointed Inspector learn his trade, and how will his apprenticeship and the making out of his indentures affect the position he hokld in .the ranks of the New Zealand police ? These are questions more easy to ask than to answer, and we again repeat that it is an utter absurdity to appoint to an office which requires special training, and six days of the week full time to the performance of its duties, one whose time is already fully occupied in the discharge of his own particular duties. An Inspector who thoroughly understands his work should be appointed at some reasonable salary, and until that is done, the mere notification that any person holds the position of Inspector of Weights and Measures means positively nothing whatever.