THE SHOP-ORDER SYSTEM OF ACCOUNTS. 349 



flu-re would be more paper and printing. As to the statement 

 of Mr. Taylor, who is connected, I believe, with Messrs. William 

 Sellers & Co., to whom I am under many obligations, I think he 

 somewhat confuses the order tickets and the time cards. The 

 order tickets are substantially such as he represents as being 

 used in his works, although most any convenient way of making 

 the orders known to the workmen may be used. A bulletin- 

 board will answer as well as anything, if nothing better can be 

 found. Verbal transmission is the readiest, but, of course, it 

 loses the character of a distinctive record. The order tickets are 

 not torn ; they are simply passed out and then returned and the 

 transaction is cancelled. The only things which are torn are the 

 labor cards, or service cards as I call them, which are torn off 

 from the top of a book, so that, with the exception of the top 

 one, they will always be reasonably clean. I have found no 

 trouble with that. In my experience at the Benicia Arsenal the 

 men kept them in little tin boxes outside their benches and 

 filled them out as their work went on. 



Then, as to Mr. Anderson's remarks about the sheets getting 

 dilapidated and the difficulty of keeping track of them, I found 

 no trouble of that kind. I never found one of these cards 

 to be lost. You do not lose them any more than you lose 

 money. They are used as if to buy things with, and, go on from 

 hand to hand until they get into the office, where they are all 

 settled into their proper places. The receipt of the order ticket 

 is indicated by each foreman's punch-marks on the duplicate 

 retained by the superintendent, so that, having in his rack that 

 ticket, the superintendent may see from a glance at the punch- 

 marks upon it who has received this order, and in time that 

 it has been completed by those whose numbers in the " com- 

 pletion " line he has punched out as their own cards come in 

 completed. 



All the record necessary is comprised on the original ticket. 



Mr. W. H. Doanc. I merely rise to ask the captain to very 

 kindly tell us how he arrived at the basis of cost ; after he got 

 the number of hours of labor, how he arrived at the cost of the 

 product. 



Mr. Taylor. I think Mr. Metcalfe has misunderstood me if 



