This table will answer equally well for the conversion of old Bazar maunds or seers, into new muns and seers, the ratio being the same, namely, as 180: 179.666.

Factory Weights.

There is another species of weight employed in some branches of the commerce of Calcutta which it will be necessary to expel before uniformity can be established. This is the system of factory weights originally used by "the English factory at Bengal," and now generally retained in the commercial transactions of the Government, although long since superseded in their customs and revenue business by the bazar weights.

It would appear to have been adopted in 1787 to save calculation in the home remittances of produce, three factory maunds being almost exactly equal to two hundred weight avoirdupois.

A moment's inspection of the Calcutta price-current will be sufficient to prove the great inconvenience which the retention of the two-fold system must cause. Some articles are quoted at "sicca rupees per bazar maund," other at "sicca rupees per factory maund," and others again at "current rupees per factory maund," the current rupee being an imaginary money, of which 116 are assumed equal to 100 siccas !

To increase the perplexity, the same article is often estimated in a different scale as it comes from different places; thus, Radnagore and Bauleah silk are sold per bazar seer: while Kasimbazar and Gonatea silk, per factory seer. Tin, iron, verdigris, Japan and English copper per 'sicca rupees and factory maund:'—steel, zinc, lead, mercury, and South American copper, per current rupees and factory maund!—Gum Benjamin is sold by factory, all other gums by bazar weight :—stick lac by the former, but shell lac and lac dye by the latter!

Many more examples might be furnished of similar inconsistency. Saltpetre, indigo, silk, the produce of the Straits, and metals are the principal articles sold by the factory maund; while grain, sugar, cotton, most articles of food, and all of retail bazar consumption, are sold by the bazar weight.

The old bazar maund was defined to be ten per cent, heavier than the factory maund, therefore the latter will be equal to 74 lb. 10 oz. 10.666 dr. avoirdupois; the seer to 1 lb. 33 oz. 13.866 dr.; and the chitak to 1 oz. 13.366 dr.

From the simple relation of the factory to the bazar weight, there can be no difficulty whatever in substituting the latter in its place, in the valuation of such articles of commerce as are still estimated by the former :—nothing more being necessary than to add ten per cent, to the prices, formerly quoted per factory maund. Thus; indigo sold at 100 or

Factory into new Mun Weights.

71

200 rupees per factory maund, will now be 110 or 220 rupees per man, and so of other goods. As such goods are invariably weighed at the custom-house on the new system, and the duty or drawback calculated accordingly, it is only a source of perplexity to buy and sell by the obsolete weight; and to retain two species of weights in a ware-house, must obviously open the door to continual mistakes, if not occasionally even to fraudulent interchange.

Table XXI. gives the conversion of factory weights into new muns accurately, but in ordinary practice the following simple rule will suffice.

I. Deduct one-eleventh from the weight in factory maunds, seers, or chitaks; the result will be the weight in British Indian (or bazar) muns, seers, and chitaks.

II. Add ten per cent, to the price per factory maund, &c, the result will be the price per British Indian (or bazar) muns, &c.

The reverse table has not been calculated, because, it is to be hoped, it will never be required.

Table XXI.—For the conversion of Bengal Factory weights into new standard mans and decimals.

[To reduce the decimals into seers and hundredths multiply by 4 and move the decimal point one place to the right: to convert the hundredths into chitaks multiply by 16 and divide by 100.]

Current rupee prices.

By a fortunate chance we are able to meet the apparently perplexing practice of estimating the values of some articles in "current rupees per factory weight," with a very simple method of expressing their equivalents according to the new system, so as to obviate any supposed diffi. culty in eradicating long established habits: for 100 current rupees

being equal to 10000 or 86.207 sicca rupees, and one factory maund being equal to .90744 mun, as above stated; the ratio of the two modes of valuation will be as 100 to 86.207.90744, or 95 exactly. Hence may be deduced the following simple rules.

I. Deduct five per cent, from the price or value quoted in current rupees per factory weight, and the result will be its equivalent in sicca rupees per bazar, or new,) weight.

II. Add one and a third per cent, to the price or value quoted in current rupees per factory weight, and the result will be its equiva→ lent in Furukhabad Madras or Bombay rupees per bazar (or new) weight. The following table is constructed on this principle, and is applicable to muns, seers, and chitaks, as the case may be:

TABLE XXII.—For the conversion of values quoted in current rupees per factory maund, seer, or chitaks into their equivalents in sicca or Furukha bad rupees per new standard for lazarI weights.

[To reduce the decimals into annas and pie see Table IV, page 10.]

The only other denomination used extensively at the presidency is the salt maund, which is 2 per cent, heavier than the bazar maund, having 82 tolas to the seer. It is much to be regretted that this absurd weight should not only have been retained, but that after the promulgation of the new regulation, the Government ordered a completely new and expensive series of brass weights to be made up for the Salt Board, at considerable cost, on the old system! It would of course have been just as simple to order the weighments of salt to be made with the new mun, and 2± per cent, surplus to be levied on the gross amount to cover wastage); the weights would then have been convertible to general use, whereas now they are confined to one specific purpose.

In the Madras and Bombay Presidencies, the weights of commerce have been long since made to conform with the avoirdupois system by assuming the nearest approximation in pounds to the local maund, and adjusting the latter to it. Thus at Madras the maund is assumed as equal to 25 lbs. av. : and at Bombay the more convenient equivalent of 28 lbs., or one quarter cwt. has been adopted for the standard maund. As these weights (especially the latter) are convenient by their direct relation to the commercial unit of England, it is neither to be expected nor to be wished, that they should be exchanged for the weights of Bengal. Indeed it should be remembered, that the use of purely English weights even in Calcutta counting-houses can lead to no confusion-it is the introduction of a fictitious native weight, like the factory maund, that is objectionable as being neither Indian nor English.

The seer at Madras contains 8 pollams of 10 pagodas each, so that like that of Bengal it has the sub-division into 80 parts. In the Malabar system, also used at Madras, 2 pollam (fanams) make a seer, and the tolam occupies the place of the maund; it is equal to 23 U-2 lb.

The seer at Bombay is divided into 30 pice, or 72 tanks, of 72 troy grains each.

The conversion of the Madras and Bombay maunds into the bazar mun of Bengal requires another table. A practical estimate of their relative values may, however, be held in the memory by means of the following simple ratios :

Ten Madras maunds
Three Bombay ditto

3 muns, I5 seers, Bengal, nearly.
1 man, 1 seer, nearly.

The exact ratios between the cwt. and the man given in page 66, are of course applicable to the derivatives of the avoirdupois pound in the other presidencies*.

• The readiest practical method of reducing the Indian into the English system, where the utmost accuracy is not required, is derived from the equation, 300 muns = 11 tons. Hence we have the following rules in addition to those given in page 66

III. Add a tenth to a sum of muns, and divide by 30: results, the weight in tons, IV. Multiply a sum in tons by 30, and deduct an eleventh from the product : results, its value in muns.

V. Deduct one-third from a weight in muns, and increase the remainder by one-tenth results, the weight in cwts. nearly.

VI. Add one-half to a given weight in cwts., and diminish the sum by one eleventh: results, the equivalent in muns, nearly.

For the more exact conversion of one denomination into the other,

the following table may be consulted:

Table XXIII.—For the mutual conversion of Bengal, Madras, and

The next table will be found very convenient for reducing the decimals of maunds in the foregoing, and upon all other occasions, into the ordinary divisions of the native weights, viz. seers and chitaks. Table XXIV. For converting Seers and Chitaks into Decimals of a Man and vice versa.