74 PRESENT SYSTEM. 



c. A percentage on the value of the labor, with or without art 

 additional percentage on the value of the material. 



d. A price, varying with the time actually employed on the 

 job. 



The latter mode, which is that used at William Sellers & Co.'s 

 great establishment, is the method which I prefer, for the 

 expenses named bear a closer relation to the quantity of labor 

 than to the value of the material or to the quality and cost of 

 the labor employed. For the running expenses of the shop, say 

 while turning shafting, being a function of time, are the same 

 whether the shafting is of iron, steel or bronze, and whether the 

 lathe is tended by a boy or a high-priced tool maker. See 

 Chapter XII. 



By Clerks. 



1. The labor items are picked out as before described; but 

 unless with the aid of the foremen and others more closely con- 

 cerned with the origin of the charges, are necessarily even less 

 apt to be correctly stated than when the foremen attend to them. 



2. The account for material is made up principally from what 

 the records go to show was procured expressly for the job in 

 question, either from store or by purchase. 



The fault of this is evident; for on the one hand, no pro- 

 vision is made for taking account of suitable material already oa 

 hand in the shops and consequently used for this special purpose ; 

 nor on the other hand is allowance made for a failure to use all 

 of the material so purchased or otherwise procured. 



The first case is evident ; the second may require the follow- 

 ing illustration: Supposing an order required for its execution 

 that certain castings be procured ; let us say that they should be 

 of malleable cast iron, which generally takes about a month to- 

 prepare. The natural course is to order a sufficient excess of 

 castings from each pattern to provide for the chance of any of 

 them proving defective, and so to prevent the great delay likely 

 to follow the discovery of the imperfections after work on the 

 castings has begun. If the castings should all prove good, is it 

 fair for the clerk to follow the only course which his ignorance 



