A BLACK MUSEUM

Shannon News, 16 April 1926, Page 2

A BLACK MUSEUM

' -MISPJjACMI> INGKMJriY. Like most oil my colleagues, I have formed a collection of specimens of misplaced ihgenii/ty on The part ol •dishonest .raders' an Inspector of weights and measures ..in the •Woek'.y Scotman). Here for example are two weights Taken from a marine stores dealer. Each purports to De 2Slb. but one weighs considerably less and the other considerably more. The dealer used th e light weight. when he A\as selling, the ovet weight when he was buying. The knife slipped under the gooas pan is a favourite device with the dishonest shopkeeper. It is easily adjusted, and as quickly removed at the first hint of danger. This one, A\ith the loaded handle. v cost nic the near that I bear on my right hand. Suspecting its presence under a butcners scales, I made sure by stooping find pretending to tie up my boot. The man, however was alert, and grabbed for the knife just ;.f. T did, and "r, received a severe cut. Another butc.ner was not content with one knife, but used four tied togclher in a bunch — therothey are, weighing just on four ounces. There does not ''appear to be anything wrong with* t bif grass bottle, but it has :i very thick bouom and holds a little over three-quarce-rs of a pint in place of the pint it was supposed to contain. My discovery that such bottles were being used oy a dairy firm in a large way of business cai-scd a sensation some years before the war. The most barefaced milk fraud In my experience, however, is represented by a measiier, used by a street vendor in a poor quarter. It has a rent in one side, so that the milk ran cut •as it was ladled into the jugs brought by customers, who were mostly children sent by their mothers My museum contains several specimens of the false bottom fraud. A peanut measure is on e example, and a circular wooden bushel used by a greengrocer is another. The, latter had been duly stain pod, the false bottom being inserted later. Here is ■ a shhilar stamped measure which Has no false bottom, but, nevertheless, gave short quantity. The ;trader had removed the bottom and replaced it alter cutting an inch or so off the" sides. To guard against this (type of fraud, such vessels arc now stamped near the bottom a well as near tne rim, and if either -stamp is missing, one knows that the measure has been cut down as described or from the top. In ■ contrast, here is an earthenware beer mug. one of a consignment s-?nc to me to be stamped as pint measures. I had to turn them down, not because ' they held too little, but becaus,. they held too much, 'the 'long p/tl' being illegal."