350 APPENDIX. 



he is of the opinion that I do not approve of the card system. 

 I thoroughly approve of the card system. We have tried it 

 practically in our works for nearly ten years. It is simply the 

 working out of one part of the details of his system that I do not 

 approve of. 



His suggestion is, that each workman should have a book con- 

 taining ten, or twenty, or a hundred or more cards, something 

 like a check book, and that each day he shall return one of those 

 cards to the office, punched by the foreman of the shop, and my 

 objection was to that part of the system. 



I think that the same card, the same check which he suggests as 

 being useful for conveying the time and the work done, and the 

 authority and so forth, to the central office, can be used to record 

 a great variety of other facts which are exceedingly interesting 

 and valuable. In point of fact, in our works we use a great 

 variety of time cards, which proceed, in our case, first from the 

 clerk to the workman, and then from the workman back to the 

 clerk. 



We have, at least, I should think, two hundred varieties of 

 printed cards, differing according to the information desired to 

 be conveyed from the workman to the office, all of them, 

 however, containing, to a certain extent, the same informa- 

 tion ; that is, each card conveys the same information and 

 other information besides, as is recorded on Mr. Metcalfe's 

 blanks. 



My criticism was that the information conveyed by his cards 

 was not sufficient. I fail also to see the advantage of using 

 a punch, as described by Mr. Metcalfe. The initial of the fore- 

 man, or the workman, or the clerk, is more rapidly made with a 

 pen or pencil at the same time as the writing is done on the 

 card than it can be with a punch, and it retains a certain amount 

 of individuality. 



Anyone who gets hold of a punch can punch the authority 

 for doing work of any extent or variety that he chooses ; but 

 handwriting is much more difficult to counterfeit. 



Mr. Oberlin Smith. I thoroughly believe in Captain Metcalfe's 

 theory of the subject, and in his system as a whole ; but I believe 

 with the other gentlemen here that some modifications may be 



