Boyle Roche Quotes
Every quart bottle should contain a quart.
While the statement can be taken as a tautology saying nothing, it can also be seen as a consumer protection effort as it was common for quart bottles, especially of whiskey, to not be filled with a quart of contents. This quotation is very often given incorrectly as “Every pint bottle should contain a quart.”
Boyle Roche, 1736 – 1807, Irish Member of Parliament, Legislation he proposed in Parliament
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This is one of the earliest examples of regulation for consumer protection. Later, the Magna Carta would incorporate the concept of standard weights and measures.
Sealed under duress and later repudiated by the King with Papal assistance
Regulation had been adopted to make sure that certain products were made to standards and appropriate quality. A small fee was taken by the regulator to attest to the quality and place a seal on it. However, the system degenerated into a system where one had to pay the fee and everything passed inspection without regard for quality. Child was one of the first observers of the criticality of implementation of regulatory schemes and the danger that a regulatory system was vulnerable to corruption.
This quotation is interesting for 3 reasons. First, it demonstrates that in 1816 the nation still did not have a standard system of weights and measures. Second, note the very polite and politic manner that Madison told the Congress to get busy and do their job. Third, here is Madison talking about a decimal based system. The English system was unique in Europe and all the other countries led by France used a metric system based on 10. Americans, despite the hostility then towed England, there was little support for a metric system. Madison and other leaders, who knew the metric system to be far superior felt that it was more important to have any standard system of weights and measures and so no one held out for a metric system which never was accepted by Americans who were not scientists or worldwide manufacturers.
He was committed to Irish freedom and independence but via politics and the law. Although he was very popular and attained much politically, there have always been Irishmen who felt violence was necessary and some who resorted to terrorism.
Sir Boyle Roche, 1st Baronet was an Irish politician. After a distinguished career in North America with the British Army, Roche became a member of the Irish House of Commons in 1775, generally acting in support of the viceregal government. He is better remembered for the language of his speeches than for his politics – they were riddled with mixed metaphors ("Mr Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud"), malapropisms and other unfortunate turns of phrase ("Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?"). Roche may have been Richard Brinsley Sheridan's model for Mrs Malaprop. While arguing for a bill, Roche once said, "It would surely be better, Mr. Speaker, to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!"
