34& APPENDIX. 



called to the supervision of a very large works, employing at 

 times a thousand men, and I found an utter destitution of all 

 system for determining the cost of work done. As an illustra- 

 tion of the state of the accounts, I would state that in the 

 assets of the company, and on its books, there appeared a credit 

 of six thousand tons of a certain kind of coal. As a matter of 

 fact, there was no such coal on the premises. The coal, at that 

 time, was worth six dollars a ton on the ground, and there was 

 an asset that it would puzzle a book-keeper to account for. 

 There was no system whatever for distributing stores at the 

 works, and no proper storeroom account. One of the impor- 

 tant items of supply was oil. The method of distributing that 

 oil consisted in turning the barrels into an oil room in the charge 

 of a man, and everybody who wanted oil came there and got it 

 without reference to where it was to be used. There was no- 

 method of telling whether they carried it home, or into one 

 department of the mill or another, or did anything with it. 

 (Description of improved method omitted?) 



One month's trial of the above described system demonstrated 

 a saving sufficient (in the matter of oil alone) to pay all the cleri- 

 cal force necessary to the carrying out of a complete system of 

 cost accounts for the whole works. One of the principal features 

 of the system of cost accounts was this, viz.: All supplies which 

 were consumed in the establishment were, when purchased, 

 charged to storeroom account, and the storekeeper kept an 

 account with each department of the works as rigidly as if he 

 were a private merchant dealing with the same department. In 

 this way waste, and what was far worse, petty thievery, was pre- 

 vented, and a degree of responsibility fixed upon the heads of 

 the several departments which resulted in increased efficiency to 

 a marked degree. 



In regard to Captain Metcalfe's paper, I am inclined to think, 

 from what I have studied of his very valuable book and of the 

 paper, that his system is an excellent one. Of course, it needs 

 modification to suit particular cases. There is some question in 

 my mind whether or not the plan of using a separate ticket for 

 every little transaction is always the best. I have no doubt that 

 it is, in cases where each man does a good deal of one kind of 



