FORTUNES LOST BY LEAKS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 258, 24 October 1908, Page 3

FORTUNES LOST BY LEAKS

LITTLE THINGS THAT CUT DOWN mora*. A London gas company has recently 'amumnced iJmi during tlie past twelve inontlu it loot bv leakage at lean 11,000,000 cubic feet of ya.s. tiua hi am-i are very carefully cuustructed, injectors luou after meters, yet there are the figures in buuk 'and white. Jinouyh gas to till about forty big balloons vanished into thin

Every gas company in existence suiters in tne jsame way, and audi losses must cut heavily into the yruiiu. Sometimes meters prove faithless. &ome years ago the officiate of the South' '-Metropolitan Gas Company discover...ll that the meter iu the Hotherhithe pu ; j-l lie batlu had for eighteen years on end been registering but one-teulh of all the gas consumed.

I It was reckoned that the total amount out of which this particular meter ha.l .'swindled the company was i'2t)2i 14s lid. l'lie company sent the corporation a bill for this amount, but the latter mi:cessjully pleaded the .Statute of Limitations, and only paid about a third oi the claim.

Water is not so elusive as gas, yet the amount oi water which <li-i|i[iea-.? between source and consumer is .-impiy amazing. Devonport has an open channel which carries water from the top of Dartmoor, twenty miles away. In summer, what between evaporation aul leakage, not lifty pel' cent, or the sinply reaches tlie city on the llanume. In factories iriction is the great enemy of ellieieuey. In all large factories, the machines u f which are driven from a central steam-engine, powir toast be transmitted from shop to shop ,by means of belts and shafting. Recently sixteen different factories were chosen and Professor Benjamin's 'tests applieu, The results were startling.

In no factory was the loss less than fifty-five per cent, of the engine's efficiency; in a planiiig-uiiil the loss was fceventy-tbree per cent,, and in a large iron works where bridge material was prepared, eighty per cent., that is, fou.fifths of the power, was absolutely wasted "in transmission.

The waste of stores and supplies iu large factories, though less than it used to be, is still very heavy. Such things ils bolts and washers, oil, red lead, cocton waste, and even files, disappear at. double the needful rate.

Worknlen liave often been caugut 'washing their hand 3 in good lard oil; land the number of new files spoilt by putting them on rough castings is enormous.

Shop-keepers, as well as factoryowners, suffer very heavy through the 'carelessness or dishonesty of employees. The head of a well-known sport-outfit-ting firm, whidh employs about 900 assistants, recently complained in a 'police-court of the constant and heavy losses incurred by small peculations. • There is also much pilfering of goods 'as well as of clash. The manager of a large ind'iarubber works reckoned his losses from thefts of rubber at not less than £2O a week.

Copper i s another raw material which is stolen in extraordinary quantities from electrical and other work 6. At some Lancashire electric works detectives had to be employed to put a atop to the thefts of copper. They discovered that the men were in the habit of carrying the metal away in their—presumably empty —dinner-cans. Tradesmen who deal i:i perishable goods such as milk, frnil. fresh meat, fish, and the like, invariably reckon a considerable percentage of loss from spoiling. Even s°, a sudden beat wave in summer cuts into the butcher's profits to an extent incredible to an outsider.

Sometimes it is just the goods whi:li are least expected to do so which go ■wrong. There was quite a sensation in the wine trade when the whole of a very celebrated vintage for 1895 wis withdrawn from the market. It was only in a few ljottlcs of this Vintage that a white sediment was observed. But the great business house decided that, rather than run any risk, they would call in the whole of the Vintage. Manufacturing houses usually have to feclid samples when tendering for a contract. 'A single sample may be of great intrinsic value, yet in the aggregate the cost, of samples mounts lip very heavily.

To take an example. Some years ago Mr. Roosevelt required a new serviee of china for the White House ami sainples were inquired for. Mr. Van Menson, upon whom the task <>t' selecting samples fell, estimated tint the total value of tlw*e submitted v. a? CUOO.

It is worth mentioning that the choice, eventually fell 011 a Wedgwood scrvic.