Chap. 216.—An ACT concerning weights and measures; and to repeal sections 1464
to 1470, both inclusive, and sections 1472 to 1485, both inclusive, of the
Code of Virginia. (Ss B 312}

Approved March 14, 1924.

Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, in the manner
following, that is to say: .

Section 1. The weights and measures received from the United
States under joint resolutions of Congress, approved June fourteenth,
eighteen hundred and thirty-six, and July twenty-seventh, eighteen
hundred and sixty-six, and such new weights and measures as shall be
received from the United States as standard weights and measures in
addition thereto or in renewal thereof, and sucl as shall be supplied
by: the State in conformity therewith and certified by the national
bureau of standards shall be the State standards of weights and meas-
ures.
Section 2. The dairy and food commissioner shall ex-officio be
State superintendent of weights and measures.

Section 3. In addition to the State standard of weights and meas-
ures, provided for above, there shall be supplied by the State at least
one complete set of copies of these, to be kept at all times in the office
of the State superintendent, and to be known as office standards; and
such other weights, measures and apparatus as may be found neces-
sary to carry out the provisions of this act, to be known as working
standards. Such weights, measures, and apparatus shall be verified
by the State superintendent upon their initial receipt and at least once
in each year thereafter, the office standards by direct comparison with
the State standards, the working standards by comparison with the
office standards. When found accurate upon these tests the office and
working standards shall be sealed by stamping on them the letter ““V”’
and the last two figures of the year with seals which the State superin-
tendent shall have and keep for that purpose. ‘The office standards
shall be used in making all comparisons of weights, measures, and
weighing or measuring devices submitted for test in the office of the
superintendent and the State standards shall be used only in verify-
ing the office standards and for scientific purposes.

Section 4. The superintendent shall take charge of the standards
adopted by this act as standards of the State, and cause them to be kept
in a safe and suitable place in the city of Richmond, from which place
they shall not be removed except for repairs or for certification, and he
shall submit them at least once in ten years to the national bureau of
standards for certification. He shall keep a complete record of the
standards, balances, and other apparatus belonging to the State and
take a receipt for the same from his successor in office. He shall an-
nually on the thirty-first day of December make to the governor a re-
port of all work done by his office during the twelve months next pre-
ceding the first day of October.

Section 5. Direction is hereby given the boards of supervisors of
the respective counties, and the councils or other governing bodies of
the respective cities, to appoint for their respective counties and cities,
& local sealer of weights and measures. Local sealers appointed under
this section shall hold office for such terms, and shall receive such sala-
ries, as the appointing power may prescribe. The salaries herein pro-
vided for shall be paid out of the county or city treasury, as the case
may be, and no fee shall be charged by the local sealer, or by the county
or city, for the inspecting, testing, or sealing, or the repairing or adjust-
ing of weights, measures, or weighing or measuring devices. Local
sealers appointed under this section may be removed at any time, by
the authority which appointed them, for nonfeasance, misfeasance, or
malfeasance in office.

Section 6. The board of supervisors of each county, and the coun-
cil or other governing body of each city, appointing a sealer under the
provisions of this act shall procure at the expense of the county or city,
and shall keep at all times a set of weights and measures and other
apparatus as complete, and of such materials and construction as the
State superintendent of weights and measures may direct. All such
weights and measures, and other apparatus having been tried and accu-
rately proven by the State superintendent shall be sealed and certified
to by him as hereinbefore provided, and shall be then deposited with
and preserved by the county or city sealer as public standards for each
county or city.

Section 7. When not otherwise provided by law the county or
city sealer shall have the power and it shall be his duty within his
county or city to inspect, test, try, and ascertain if they are correct all
weights, measures, and weighing or measuring devices kept, offered, or
exposed for sale, sold, or used or employed within the county or city
by any proprietor, agent, lessee, or employee in proving the size, quan-
tity, area, or measurement of quantities, things, produce, or articles for
distribution or consumption purchased or offered or submitted by such
person or persons for sale, hire, or award; and he shall have the power
to and shall from time to time weigh or measure and inspect packages
or amounts of commodities of whatsoever kind kept for the purpose of
sale, offered or exposed for sale, or sold or in the process of delivery, in
order to determine whether the same contain the amounts represented,
and whether they be kept, offered, or exposed for sale or sold in a man-
ner in accordance with law; he shall at least twice each year and as much
oftener as he may deem necessary see that all weights, measures, and
weighing or measuring devices used in the county or city are correct.
He may for the purpose above mentioned, and in the general perform-
ance of his official duties, enter and go into or upon, and without
formal warrant, any stand, place, building, or premises, or stop any
vendor, peddler, junk dealer, coal wagon, ice wagon, delivery wagon, or
any person whomsoever, and require him, if necessary, to proceed to
some place which the sealer may specify, for the purpose of making the
proper tests. Whenever the county or city sealer finds a violation of
the statutes relating to weights and measures, he shall cause the viola-
tor to be prosecuted.

Section 8. Whenever the county or city sealer compares weights
measures, or weighing or measuring devices and finds that they cor.
respond or causes them to correspond with the standards in his pos.
session, he shall scal or mark such weights, measures, or weighing o1
measuring devices with appropriate devices to be approved by the
State superintendent of weights and measures.
Section 9. The county or city sealer shall condemn and seize and
may destroy incorrect weights, measures, or weighing or measuring
devices which, in his best judgment, are not susceptible of satisfactory
repair, but such as are incorrect and yet, in his best judgment may be
repaired, he shall mark or tag as “‘condemned for repairs’’ in a manner
prescribed by the State superintendent of weights and measures. The
owners or users of any weights, measures, or weighing or measuring de-
vices of which such disposition is made shall have the same repaired
and corrected within ten days, and they may neither use nor dispose of
the same in any way, but shall hold the same at the disposal of the sealer.
Any weights, measures, or weighing or measuring devices which have
been “‘condemned for repairs,’’ and have not been. repaired as required
above, shall be confiscated by the sealer.

Section 10. The county or city sealer shall keep 1 a complete record
of all of his official acts, and shall make an annual report to the authority
which appointed him, and an annual report duly sworn to, on the first
day of October, to the State superintendent of weights and measures,
on blanks furnished by the latter, and also, any special reports that the
latter may request.

Section 11. The superintendent of weights and measures and the
county and city sealers are hereby authorized and empowered to seize
for use as evidence, without formal warrant, any false or unsealed
weight, measure, or weighing or measuring device or package or amount
of commodity found to be used, retained, or offered or exposed for sale
or sold in violation of law.

Section 12. Any person who shall hinder or obstruct in any way
the superintendent of weights and measures, or any county or city sealer
in the performance of his official duties shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,
and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than
twenty, nor more than two hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in jail
for not more than three months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Section 13. Any person who shall impersonate in any way the
superintendent of weights and measures, or any county or city sealer,
by the use of his seal or counterfeit of his seal, or otherwise, shall be
guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be pun-
ished by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred
dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both
such fine and imprisonment.

Section 15. A cord contains one hundred and twenty-eight cubic
feet, being eight feet long, four feet high, and four feet wide, or the
equivalent thereof; and in all measurements of wood, tan-bark or other
things subject to such measurements the foregoing shall be the true and
legal standard, any usage, by law or ordinance of any corporation, rail-
road or other company to the contrary, notwithstanding. And in all
sales by weights of the agricultural products hereinafter named, the
number of pounds per bushel as stated in the following schedule shall
be the true and legal standard: Alfalfa seed, sixty pounds; barley,
forty-eight pounds; navy and soja beans, sixty pounds; blue grass seed,
fourteen pounds; bran, twenty pounds; buckwheat, forty-eight pounds;
carrots, fifty pounds; castor beans, forty-six pounds; chestnuts, fifty-
seven pounds; clover seed, sixty pounds; coal (anthracite), eighty
pounds; corn (in ear), seventy pounds; corn (shelled),’ fifty-six pounds;
corn meal, forty-eight pounds; dried apples, twenty-eight pounds; dried
peaches (peeled), forty pounds: dried peaches (unpeeled), thirty-two
pounds; flaxseed, fifty-six pounds; hemp seed, forty-four pounds; Hun-
garian grass seed, forty-eight pounds; lime (unslacked), eighty pounds;
malt, thirty-eight pounds; millet seed, fifty pounds; oats, thirty-two
pounds: onions, fifty-seven pounds; orchard grass seed, fourteen pounds;
parsnips, fifty pounds; Virginia peanuts, twenty-two pounds; Spanish
peanuts, thirty pounds; peas (black-eye and other cow-peas), sixty
pounds; potatoes (Irish), sixty pounds; potatoes (sweet), fifty-six
pounds; plastering hair, eight pounds; red top grass seed, forty pounds;
rye, fifty-six pounds; salt, fifty pounds; timothy seed, forty-five pounds;
tomatoes, sixty pounds; turnips, fifty-five pounds; wheat, sixty pounds;
cotton seed, thirty pounds.

Section 17. Once in every five years the directors of each bank
shall have the weights used in such bank tried, proved and sealed,
either by the superintendent or a sealer of weights and measures. No
tender by any bank in the State, of gold weighed with weights not so
sealed, shall be legal. The payer to, or receiver from, any bank, of
gold, may require that it shall be weighed in each scale and the mean
weight resulting therefrom shall be deemed the true weight.

Section 18. When a dealer’or dealers in coal in cities or towns
in this State, where public scales are kept, may be requested by a person
or persons buying as much as five hundred pounds of coal at any one
time to weigh such coal upon the public scales, said dealer or dealers
shall do so upon such request, the person or persons buying the coal
to pay the fee for weighing same, if such shall be of proper weight,
otherwise such fee shall be paid by said dealer. Any dealer refusing to
weigh or to have weighed such coal as required inthis section, or to pay
such fee for weighing the same as herein required, shall be fined the sum
of five dollars for each offense.

Section 19. It shall be unlawful to sell or offer to sell any coal,
coke, or charcoal in any other manner than by weight. It shall be
unlawful for any person to deliver any coal, coke, or charcoal without
such delivery being accompanied by a delivery ticket and a duplicate
thereof, on each of which shall be in ink or other indelible substance,
distinctly expressed in pounds, the gross weight of the load, the tare
of the delivery vehicle, and the quantity or quantities of coal, coke, or
charcoal contained in the vehicle used in such deliveries, with the name
of the purchaser thereof, and the name of the dealer from whom pur-
chased. One of these tickets shall be surrendered to the sealer of
weights and measures upon his demand for his inspection, and this
ticket or a weight slip issued by him when he desires to retain the
original shall be delivered to the said purchaser of said coal, coke, or
charcoal, or his agent or representative at the time of the delivery of
the fuel; and the other ticket shall be retained by the seller of the fuel.
When the buyer carries away the purchase, a delivery ticket showing
the actual number of pounds delivered to him must be given to him
at the time the sale is made.

Section 21. It shall be unlawful to keep for the purpose of sale,
offer or expose for sale, or sell any commodity composed in whole or
in part of cotton, wool, linen, or silk, or any other textile matenal on
a spool or similar holder, or in a container or band, or in a bolt or roll,
or in a ball, coil, or skein, or in any similar manner, unless the net
amount of the commodity in terms of weight or measure shall be defi-
nitely, plainly, and conspicuously marked on the principal label, if
there be such a label; otherwise on a wrapper, band, or tag attached
thereto. The words “spool or similar holder, container, or band, bolt
or roll, or ball, coil, or skein,” shall be construed to include the spool
or similar holder, container or band, bolt, or roll, or ball, coil, or skein
put up by the manufacturer; or, when put up prior to the order of the
commodity, by the vendor. "It shall be held to include both the whole-
sale and the retail package.

Section 23. Bottles used for the sale of milk or cream shall be of the
capacity of one-half gallon, three pints, one quart, one pint, one-half pint,
and one gill. Bottles or jars used for the sale of milk or cream shall
have clearly blown or otherwise permanently marked in the side of
the bottle the capacity of the bottle and the word ‘“‘sealed,” and in the
side or bottom of the bottle the name, initials, or trademark of the manu-
facturer, and a designating number, which designation shall be different
for each manufacturer and may be used in identifying the bottles.
The designating number shall be furnished by the State superintendent
of weights and measures upon application by the manufacturer, and
upon the filing by the manufacturer of a bond in the sum of one thou-
sand dollars, with sureties, to be approved by the attorney general,
conditioned upon their conformance with the requirements of this sec-
tion. A record of the bonds furnished and the designating numbers
and to whom furnished shall be kept in the office of the superintendent
of weights and measures.

Any manufacturer who sells or offers to sell milk or cream. bottles
to be used in the State that do not comply as to size and markings
with the provisions of this section shall suffer a penalty of five hundred
dollars, to be recovered by the attorney general in an action against
the offender’s bondsmen, to be brought in the name of the Common-
wealth. Any dealer who uses, for the purpose of selling milk or cream,
jars, or bottles purchased after this law takes effect that do not comply

with the requirements of this section as to markings and capacity, shall
be deemed guilty of using a false or insufficient measure.

Sealers of weights and measures are not required to seal bottles or
jars for milk or cream marked as in this section provided, but they shall
have the power to, and shall from time to time, make tests on individual
bottles used by:the various firms in the territory over which they have
jurisdiction, 1n order to ascertain if the above provisions are being
complied with, and they shall immediately report violations found to
the State superintendent of weights and measures.

Section 24. ‘The standard barrel for fruits, vegetables, and other
dry commodities other than apples and cranberries, shall be of the fol-
lowing dimensions when measured without distention of its parts:
Length of staves, twenty-eight and one-half inches; diameter of heads,
seventeen and one-eighth inches; distance between heads, twenty-six
inches; circumference of bulge, sixty-four inches, outside measurement;
and the thickness of staves not greater than four-tenths of.an inch;
provided, that any barrel of a different form, having a capacity of seven
thousand and fifty-six cubic inches, shall be a standard barrel. The
standard barrel for cranberries shall be of the following dimensions
when measured without distention of its parts: Length of staves,
twenty-eight and one-half inches; diameter of heads, sixteen and one-
fourth inches; distance between heads, twenty-five and one-fourth
inches; circumference of bulge, fifty-eight and one-half inches, outside
measurements; and the thickness of staves not greater than four-tenths
of an inch.

It shall be unlawful for any person to offer or expose for sale, sell,
or ship any other barrels for fruits, vegetables, or other dry commodities,
or to offer or expose for sale, sell, or ship any fruits, vegetables or other
dry commodities in other barrels than the standard barrels as defined
in this section, or subdivisions thereof known as the third, half, or three-
quarters barrel; provided, however, that nothing in this section shall
apply to barrels used in packing or shipping apples and commodities
sold exclusively by weight or numerical count; and provided, further,
that no barrel shall be deemed below standard within the meaning of
this section when shipped to any foreign country and constructed accord-
ing to the specifications or directions of the foreign purchaser if not
constructed in conflict with the laws of the foreign country to which
the same is intended to be shipped.

Section 25. It shall be unlawful to sell or offer to sell any berries
or small fruits in any other manner than by weight, or in the containers
described in this section. It shall be unlawful to procure or keep for
the purpose of sale, offer or expose for sale, sell, or give away baskets
or other open containers for berries or small fruits, holding one quart
or less, or to procure or keep for the purpose of sale, offer or expose for
sale, or sell berries or small fruits in baskets or other open containers,
holding one quart or less, of any other than the following capacities,
when level full: One quart, one pint, or one-half pint, standard dry
measure. ° .

Section 26. Whenever any commodity is sold on a basis of weight,
it shall be unlawful to employ any other weight in such sale than the
net weight of the commodity and all contracts concerning goods sold
on a basis of weight shall be understood and construed accordingly.
Whenever the weight of a commodity is mentioned in this act, it shall
be understood and construed to mean the net weight of the commodity.

Section 27. Any person who, by himself or by his servant or agent,
or as the servant or agent of another person, shall offer or expose for
sale, sell, use in the buying or selling of any commodity or thing or for
hire or award, or retain in his possession a false weight or measure or
weighing or measuring device or any weight or measure or weighing or
measuring device, which has not, been sealed by the State sunerintendent
or by a sealer or deputy sealer of weights and measures within one year,
or shall dispose of any condemned weight, measure, or weighing or
measuring device contrary to law, or remove any tag placed thereon
by the State superintendent or by a sealer of weights and measures;
or who shall sell or offer or expose for sale less than the quantity he
represents, or shall take or attempt to take more than the quantity he
represents, when, as the buyer, he furnishes the weight, measure, or
weighing or measuring device by means of which the amount of com-
modity is determined; or who shall keep for the purchase of sale, offer
or expose for sale, or sell any commodity in a manner contrary to law
or who shall violate any provision of this act for which a specific penalty
has not been provided; or who shall sell or offer for sale, or use or have
in his possession for the purpose of selling or using any device or instru-
ment to be used to or calculated to falsify any weight or measure shall
be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of not less
than twenty or more than two hundred dollars, or by imprisonment
for not more than three months, or by both such fine and imprisonment,
upon a first conviction, and upon a second or subsequent conviction
he shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty or more than five
hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in jail for not more than one
year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Section 28. The word “person” as used in this act shall be con-
strued to import both the plural and singular, as the case demands,
and shall include corporations, companies, partnerships, firms, societies,
and associations.

The words ‘‘weights, measures, or (and) weighing or (and) measur-
ing devices,’ as used in this act shall be construed to include all weights,
scales, beams, measures of every kind, instruments and mechanical
devices for weighing or measuring, and any appliances and accessories
connected with any or all such instruments.

The words ‘“‘sell’”’ or ‘‘sale,’’ as used in this act, shall be construed
to include barter and exchange.

Section 29. Sections fourteen hundred and sixty-four to fourteen
hundred and seventy, both inclusive, and sections fourteen hundred
and seventy-two to fourteen hundred and eighty-five, both inclusive, of
the Code of Virginia, are hereby repealed.

Section 30.- The dairy and food commissioner, as ex-officio super-
intendent of weights and measures, shall, in addition to the powers
hereinbefore conferred upon him, have, throughout the Commonwealth,
ofl the powers and authority of a sealer of weights and measures.
Furthermore, it shall be the duty of the dairy and food commissioner
to appoint, as sealers of weights and measures, such of the employees
of his office as he may deem necessary for the better and more efficient
enforcement of this act, and such employees, when so designated by
the dairy and food commissioner, shall, throughout the limits of the
Commonwealth, have all the powers and authority conferred upon a
sealer of weights and measures by this act.

Section 31. In order to enable the superintendent of weights” and
measures to purchase the necessary standards to carry out the pro-
visions of this act, and to employ necessary clerical assistance, the sum
of five thousand dollars is hereby appropriated, said sum to be paid
out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated.