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In ancient times, too, it was usual to attempt to regulate the

profits of merchants and other dealers, by regulating the price

of provisions and ether goods. The assize of bread is, so far as

I know, the only remnant of this ancient usage. Where there is an

exclusive corporation, it may, perhaps, be proper to regulate the

price of the first necessary of life; but, where there is none,

the competition will regulate it much better than any assize. The

method of fixing the assize of bread, established by the 31st of

George II. could not be put in practice in Scotland, on account

of a defect in the law, its execution depending upon the office

of clerk of the market, which does not exist there. This defect

was not remedied till the third of George III. The want of an

assize occasioned no sensible inconveniency; and the

establishment of one in the few places where it has yet taken

place has produced no sensible advantage.