An Unjust Weighing Machine at the Denaby Main Colliery.

The Denaby Main Colliery Company had been summoned by Supt. Gillett, inspector of weights and measures for the district, for having had on their premises an unjust weighing machine, on the 17th inst.

Mr. F. Parker Rhodes defended.

Mr. Gillett said that on Tuesday last he visited the Denaby Main Coal Company’s Colliery. He examined a machine for weighing coal waggons. He found it 1 cwt. 3 qrs. against the prisoners. He should think the machine would at least weigh eight tons; and the colliery was an extensive one.

Mr. Rhodes said he was instructed by the company to express their great regret that through the negligence of one of their servants, on whom they had relied, they should have been brought into that position. It was the duty of the man in charge of the machine to see that it was kept clean and in proper working order. If there was anything wrong with the scale it was his business to give notice to the officials so that it might be attended to at once.

It was used for weighing trucks sent by rail, and although of course the defendants ought not to be in possession of a machine which was untrue, there was practically no wrong done, because each waggon was weighed by the railway company as well as the colliery. Any discrepancy between the two weights would be at once detected.

Only a day or two before Mr. Gillett’s visit the machine had been properly tested, and if the man in charge of it had done what was right, when Mr. Gillett saw it there would have been no cause of complaint.

Fined 50s. and costs.