UNACCOUNTED-FOR GAS. 1^7 



honestly entitled to as much as he can get. In the course 

 of forty years' experience, not one consumer in ten thousand 

 returns an account as not being large enough, although the 

 slow meters are more than one in a hundred. With the 

 variation in consumption that now obtains as between one 

 year and another, it is more difficult to detect them, but it 

 is very necessary that the accounts should be carefully 

 looked through and compared with corresponding quarters 

 of previous years, and doubtful cases should at once be 

 attended to. A bete noire of the gas company, small or 

 large, is the small or irregular user, who only requires a 

 light for five minutes a day, or for " stand-by " purposes. 

 He is more common in small districts than in large, and a 

 connection can always be traced between the percentage of 

 unaccounted-for gas and the proportion of customers who 

 show less than 1,000 cubic feet consumption per quarter. 

 If from any cause the consumers of this class increase, up 

 goes the unaccounted. I am strongly inclined to regard 

 this line of business as unremunerative. The small con- 

 sumer is unprofitable, and contributes to nothing but the 

 wastage ; and a minimum charge of 1,000 cubic feet per 

 quarter for every meter connected up to the mains, whether 

 used or not, would be no more than ordinary justice to the 

 gas company. 



It should always be remembered that the unaccounted- 

 for gas may be lost at any point between the works meter 

 and the consumers' meters. It is no use exploring the 

 district when the crown of the holder is like a pepper box. 

 A start should be made from the beginning, by seeing that 

 the holders are perfectly sound and tight. 



