4 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



.envy) would be a big bonanza. . . . But some of the self -same 

 ordinances, designed to protect the good, conscientious plumber, 

 have here and there acted as a screen for the quack plumber 

 and fat for the ward bummer and the grog-shop politicians." * 

 Is this not saying, as was once said to a French despot, that 

 for every office he was pleased to make God was pleased to 

 make a fool to fill it ? With a touch of bitter disappointment 

 over honest toil gone for naught, Mr. Firmin declared, in the 

 essay quoted from already, that the plumbers that had "endeav- 

 ored to be just to their fellow-men," that had " given their best 

 thought" to "devising improved methods of practical sanita- 

 tion," that " could point to the improved standard of plumbing as 

 a part of their labors," had " not been rewarded in anything like 

 a just ratio. ... I might," he added in a tone of deeper disap- 

 pointment, "even say in an everyday dollars-and- cents view," 

 that they " have not directly benefited at all." f 



The most serious evil remains to be mentioned, for it falls 

 upon the very persons whose benefit is, in the eyes of the " philan- 

 thropists" and "benefactors," its sole justification. Instead of 

 making them more alert to protect themselves from the dangers 

 that assail them and to secure the services of the most expert to 

 aid them in this difficult task, it creates in them a state of indif- 

 ference. Conscious that benevolent statesmen have made laws 

 to keep them from harm, they fancy that it is no longer needful 

 for them to take thought of the morrow. Plumbers themselves, 

 with all their ardent faith in legislation, have not been able to 

 shut their eyes to this peril. More than once have the thought- 

 ful among them called attention to " overconfidence on the part 

 of the architect and the general public" in "the cure-all-ism of 

 the plumbing law." " This danger is at once serious to the public 

 and to ourselves as business men," said the Sanitary Committee 

 at the Philadelphia convention. \ " We found," said Mr. Firmin, 

 also, " that the public has come to rely to a dangerous degree 

 upon plumbing laws. . . . The danger lies," he added, " in the fact 

 that the public believe that all plumbers, by virtue of the law's 

 operation, are compelled to produce equal and certain results, and 

 that if they have a certain piece of work to be performed it will 

 make no difference whether they give the job to Jones or Brown. 

 . . . Therein they fall into error, injuring themselves, as well as 

 the honest plumber. They remove the incentive to progression 

 and honesty." The Sanitary Committee takes the same view in 

 almost the same words. "There has arisen a belief," it says, 

 " that now it is not necessary to use care in the choice of your 



* Proceedings, Detroit, 1894, p. 169. 



f Proceedings, Philadelphia, 1895, p. 91. \ Ibid., p. 43. 



