; and, therefore, concluded,
otherwise than will be here proposed, to suppress it altogether.
Their opinion was founded chiefly on the silence of the laws as to
this weight. But the harmony here developed in the system of weights
and measures, of which the avoirdupois makes an essential member,
corroborated by a general use, from very high antiquity, of that, or
of a nearly similar weight under another (6.) name, seem stronger
proofs that this is legal weight, than the mere silence of the
written laws is of the contrary.
Be this as it may, it is in such general use with us, that, on
the principle of popular convenience, its higher denominations, at
least, must be preserved. It is by the avoirdupois pound and ounce
that our citizens have been used to buy and sell. But the smaller
subdivisions of drachms and quarters are not in use with them. On
the other hand, they have been used to weigh their money and medicine
with the pennyweights and grains troy weight, and are not in the
habit of using the pounds and ounces of that series. It would be for
their convenience, then, to suppress the pound and ounce troy, and
the drachm and quarter avoirdupois; and to form into one series the
avoirdupois pound and ounce, and the troy pennyweight and grain.
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