Preventing Fraud in Precious Metals
By Editor
To prevent fraud in the manufacture of watch-cases or other articles manufactured of gold or silver, a bill has passed the House of Representatives and will soon come before the Senate. This bill, if passed, will make it a crime punishable by fine, imprisonment, and confiscation of goods for any person or corporation to manufacture and offer for sale articles of gold or silver labeled or stamped with words indicating that such articles have passed a government test of purity when they have not, and that they are pure metal when they are not. The Dueber-Hampden Watch Company is ardently working for the passage of this bill, and has brought before the Interstate Commerce Committee of the Senate much evidence to show the necessity of such legislation. It has brought forth many instances of the sale of what purported to be solid gold watch cases, but which have proved to be the basest of frauds upon the unsuspecting purchasers. It is certainly to be hoped that the bill may become a law and that it may bring about the repression of such fraudulent transactions. If it does become a law, we hope it will have a more conscientious enforcement than the laws against the adulteration of food have ever received. Unscrupulous manufacturers backed by unscrupulous inspectors can emasculate the wisest laws our statesmen can devise.