silk handkerchiefs, but did not, when required, produce a legal licence, and confessed that he did offer them for sale, and that he had no licence for selling them; whereupon he was convicted. Two exceptions were taken to the conviction: 1st. With respect to the person, that he was not brought within the description of the acts, as going from town to town, and travelling on foot, or with horse, horses, or otherwise, but he was only generally described to be a person that traded as an hawker and pedlar, and offered to sell a parcel of the handkerchiefs to the informer. 2d. With respect to the offence: the evidence was the defendant's own confession, and that extends no further than barely to the simple fact of offering to sale silk handkerchiefs in the manner charged upon him. The court held that a single act of selling a parcel of silk handkerchiefs to a particular person is not a proof that the defendant is such a hawker, pedlar, or petty chapman, as ought to take out a licence by virtue of the acts of parliament. The conviction was therefore quashed (1). A person forging a licence, or travelling with or producing such forgery, is liable to forfeit £300 (2). Any person may seize and detain a hawker found trading without a licence, or refusing to produce it according to the act, after being required so to do for a reasonable time, in order to give notice to a constable or other peace officer, who shall carry such person so seized, unless he in the mean time produce his licence, before a justice of the place where the offence is committed, who shall, on confession or proof on oath by one witness of his having so traded and not produced his licence, convict the offender, and thereupon by his warrant cause the before-mentioned sum of £40 to be levied by distress, and in the meantime commit the offender to the house of correction (3). Licensed hawker must be placed in large roman capitals on every vehicle for the conveyance of goods, and on every room in which he trades, and on the handbills distributed, together with the number or mark of distinction printed on his licence, on penalty of £10 (4). Unlicensed persons so marking their respective vehicles for goods, or rooms, &c. forfeit £10 (5). A person letting out, hiring, or lending a licence, or trading with a licence granted to another person, or in which his own name is not inserted as grantee, forfeits the sum of £40; his licence becomes void on conviction, and he is incapable of holding another (6). But (1) The King v. Little, 1 Burr. 609. The King v. Buckle, 4 East. 346. 11 East. 181. (2) 50 Geo. 3. c. 41. s. 18. (3) 50 G. 3. c. 41. s. 20. (4) 50 G. 3. c. 41. s. 14. (6) 29 G. 3. c. 26. s. 13 3 & 4 Ann. c. 4. s. 4. it has been decided, that sending out a servant with a licence to sell coals for the principal, on the sale of which such servant had a per-centage, was not such a lending of a licence as would support an action for the penalty (1). And the 50 Geo. 3. c. 41. expressly provides, hat nothing contained in it shall subject to the penalty a servant travelling for a licensed master, with the licence of such master, &c. for his benefit, or a licensed master sending such servant to travel with such licence. The statutes do not impose any restrictions on a person exposing to sale or selling goods in a public mart, market, or fair (2). But the exemption extends only to sales in the public marketplaces, and on the days of market; and therefore if a hawker sells his goods in a part of a market town, not the open market-place, though on a market-day and during the market hours, he incurs the penalty (3). So the statutes do not prohibit persons from selling printed papers licensed by authority, or fish, fruit, or victuals; nor the real workers or makers of any goods or manufactures of G. B., or their children, apprentices, known agents, or servants usually residing with them, from carrying such goods or manufactures abroad, exposing them to sale, and selling them by retail or otherwise, in any mart, market, or fair, and in every city, borough, town corporate, and market town; nor any tinkers, coopers, glaziers, plumbers, harness menders, or other persons usually trading in mending kettles, tubs, household goods, or harness, from going about and carrying with them proper materials for mending the same (4). No wholesale traders in lace, or woollen, linen, silk, cotton, or mixed goods, or goods or manufactures of G. B. (5), are to be deemed hawkers, &c.; and such persons, and those employed under them, to sell by wholesale only, may go from house to house to any customer who sells again, without being subject to any penalty (6). An exemption has been also made in favour of persons carrying about coals in carts, or on horses, mules, or asses, and selling them by retail. (7) (1) Hodgeson v. Flower, 2 Campb. 292. (2) Ib. s. 17. and 50 Geo. 3. c. 41. s. 5. (3) Rex v. Redfearne, 4 T. R. 274. (4) 50 Geo. 3. c. 41. s. 23. 29 Geo. 3. c. 26. s. 21. 9 & 10 W. 3. c. 27. s. 9. (5) Maxwell v. Mayre, 1 Bla. Rep. 271-364.; and 55 Geo. 3. c. 71. as to hawkers, &c. in Scotland. (6) 52 Geo. 3. c. 108. s. 1. 29 Geo. 3. c. 26. s. 20. (7) 52 Geo. 3. c. 108. s. 2. No person coming within the description of the statutes as a Disqualifications. hawker or pedlar, can lawfully, either by opening a shop and exposing goods to sale by retail in any place in which he is not a householder or resident, or by any other means, sell goods, either by himself or any other person, by outcry or auction, under a penalty of £50 (1). Upon this regulation it has been held, that a person travelling from town to town, and having packages of books, &c. sent after him by public conveyance, and taking rooms at each town, and there selling such books by retail by auction, is a trading person within the meaning of the act (2); and a licensed auctioneer going from town to town in a public stage coach, and sending goods by public waggons, and selling them on commission, by retail or by auction, at the different towns, is a trading person within the meaning of this section, and must take out a hawker's and pedlar's licence (3). But a licensed hawker, opening a room in a place in which he is not a householder, nor a usual resident, and selling there by retail, does not commit an offence within this statute, for to constitute the offence, the selling must be by outcry, &c., or by some mode of sale at auction (4). Such hawker or pedlar cannot sell teas or spirits, though he have a permit, under all the penalties of being without a licence (5). So if a pedlar have in his possession foreign cambric or French lawn, he forfeits it, his other goods, and his licence (6). An hawker convicted of dealing in goods, either smuggled or fraudulently obtained, forfeits his licence, and is incapable of obtaining a new one, besides incurring the penalties for such illicit trading (7). Any person duly licensed to trade as an hawker and pedlar may set up trades in any place where he is a resident, though not brought up seven years apprentice, notwithstanding the 5 Eliz. to the contrary; and if prosecuted, may plead the general issue, and have double costs (8); and no such persons, their wives, or children, can be removed, until they become actually chargeable to such parish or place (9). All pecuniary penalties above £20 may be sued for in the courts at Westminster, if not exceeding £20, before a justice (10). But imprisonment under the act is not to exceed three months. (11) (1) 50 Geo. 3. c. 41. s. 7. and 29 Geo. 3. c. 26. s. 16. (2) Dean qui tam v. King, 4 Barnw. & Ald. 517. (3) Rex v. Turner, 4 Barn. & Ald. 510. (4) Allen v. Sparkhall, 1 Barn. and Ald. 100. (5) 9 Geo. 2. c. 35. (6) 7 Geo. 3. c. 43. s. 7, 8, 9. c. 26. s. 22, 23. s. 24, 5. (11) Id. s. 24. and id. s. 26, CHAP. XI. Of Weights and Measures, Coins and Money, and Notes. THE appointment of standard weights and measures, which, as the criteria of value, ought to be as certain and uniform as possible, is delegated by the law of this country to the king, as in Normandy it was vested in the duke. However, although this power is said to be inherent in the crown, it has been exercised from the earliest times by the legislature (1). Lord Coke, in his chapter on the ancient and now abolished office of the clerk of the market of the king's household, observes, that it was part of the duty of this officer to keep a court and enquire of weights and measures, whether they were according to the king's standard or not; and for that purpose to make process to sheriffs and bailiffs to return panels before him, and to deliver estreats, into the exchequer, of things concerning his office (2). The same author observes, that in his time the exertions of this officer were not much required, for that the justices of assize, justices of oyer and terminer, justices of the peace, sheriffs in their tourns, and lords in their leets, might and did enquire of false weights and measures. (3) In treating of this subject, we shall inquire, first, what are the standard weights and measures; secondly, how far the laws for observing them are obligatory on the public,the provisions for keeping standards in market towns for examining weights and measures, and destroying such as are found false or defective. (4) The standard of weights was originally taken from corns of wheat, whence the lowest denomination of weights we have is still called a grain; thirty-two of which are directed by the (1) Grand Coutumier, c. 16. Measures will be found in the 1 Bla. Com. 274. (2) 4 Inst. 273. (3) Id. ibid. (4) Tables of Weights and Appendix. As to Weights and Measures in general see Burn, J. tit. Weights and Measures. statute called compositio mensurarum to compose a penny-weight, whereof 20 make an ounce, twelve ounces a pound, and so upwards;-and upon these principles the first standards were made; which, being originally so fixed by the crown, their subsequent regulations have been generally made by the king in parliament. Thus, under king Richard I., in his parliament holden at Westminster, A. D. 1197, it was ordained, that there should be only one weight and measure throughout the kingdom, and that the custody of the assize, or standard of weights and measures, should be committed to certain persons in every city and borough (1), from whence the antient and now exploded office of the king's aulnager, whose duty it was, for a certain fee, to measure all cloths made for sale, seems to have been derived (2). This ordinance of king Richard was frequently dispensed with in king John's time for money, which occasioned a provision to be made for inforcing it in the great charters of king John and his son (3). These original standards were called pondus regis and mensura domini regis; and are directed, by a variety of subsequent statutes, to be kept in the exchequer, and all weights and measures to be made conformably thereto (4). The legal weights in common use throughout Great Britain, are troy and avoirdupois; the former (5) consisting of grains, pennyweights, ounces, and pounds, whereof twenty-four grains make a pennyweight, twenty pennyweights an ounce, and twelve ounces a pound, by which bread (6), gold, silver, and apothecaries medicines are weighed; and to this weight corn measures are reducible, as 8lbs. troy make a gallon, 16lbs. a peck, and consequently 64lbs. a bushel. The statute 12 H. 7. c. 5. directs that every bushel shall contain 8 gallons of wheat, and every gallon, 8lbs. troy, and every pound, 12 ounces, on the penalty of £20, upon every city, borough, town or place having the keeping of common measures, that shall keep any other bushel or gallon (7). And by the statute 13 & 14 W. 3. (1) Hoveden, Matth. Paris. (2) 1 Bla. Com. 275, 6. abolished by 11 & 12 W. 3. c. 20.; and see 57 Geo. 3. c. 109. Com. Dig. tit. Trade, (C. 5.) Hard. 205.215. (3) 9 H. 3. c. 25. (4) 14 Edw. 3. st. 1. c. 12. 25 Ed. 3. st. 5. C. 10. 16 Ric. 2. c. 3. 8 Hen. 6. c. 5. 11 Hen. 6. |