for

many crushed hands and arms. It is difficult to guard these without interfering with their operations. The only effectual way is to bring a guard down as close as possible to the entrance of the rolls, so that a finger cannot be inserted. The revolving knives of wood-planing machines create a danger of a similar character.

Circular saws were formerly never guarded, but now they are generally protected. Many guards, however, are still without riving knives at the back. Any one who has worked saws knows how stuff is liable to be lifted up at the back, and sent flying towards the front, and perhaps drawing in the hands of the attendant stationed at the rear. The riving knife practically extinguishes risk of such accidents. See Saw Guards.

Emery wheels are best guarded with sheetiron hoods, though perhaps the larger number still have hoods of cast iron. The objection to the latter is that a fracture of the wheel might perhaps fracture the guard also, and send the fragments flying. A flexible form of guard is used on many Continental grinders. The sides of a wheel should be protected as well as the periphery. The best modern wheels are rendered practically secure against a disastrous fracture by the fitting of the washers, which are curved to grip curved faces on the wheel, so probably retaining broken pieces. Some makers, too, test their wheels beyond the proper running speed, to give them a chance to fracture before sending them out. See Guards for illustrations.

The best protection for lifts is a subject on which there is no unanimity of opinion. A useful safety device is the bar gripper, that can be used in connection with an automatic catch, which latches the gates and prevents them from being opened except when at the proper floor level.

Even where machinery is properly fenced, many accidents occur through heavy articles falling on men's limbs, or through revolving work flying out of the machines, and from sling chains or ropes breaking, through molten metal running out or splashing, and from scalding water, or steam.

Accidents due to electric shock are now added to those of revolving wheels," shafts, and belts. The best safeguards are, wearing indiarubber

gloves, and rubber-soled shoes, which should be worn constantly among electrical machinery, but not used indiscriminately out of doors, absolute cleanliness and dryness being essential to perfect insulation. Live wires must never be handled except with indiarubber gloves, nor in case of accident must they be cut except with nippers having insulated handles.

When an accident occurs, the rescuer or rescuers have to exercise great care to avoid receiving shock from the sufferer. In the absence of gloves or shoes, insulation may be secured by standing on an indiarubber mat. Failing this, dry boarding or a heap of dry clothes will supply partial insulation, and the hands must be wrapped in dry clothing before attempting a rescue. Anything damp, whether the hands or clothing, becomes a conducting medium. A piece of dry wood may be used to remove a wire from contact with a person.

The foregoing remarks cover only one aspect of the subject. They do not touch the broad questions which concern the safety of engines, shafting, main belts, and pulleys, the safety of cranes, and crane tracks, electrical conductors, &c.

The prevention of accidents is a subject in which these, and other matters are included. It begins with the designs of mechanisms. In it is involved the prevention of fracture, both under normal and abnormal stresses, by imparting strength sufficient, within the elastic limit, the selection of a suitable factor of safety, the making provision in some cases for ready means of examination and repairs. Again, in many mechanisms provision is embodied for preventing accidents due to "racing," or of a wrong movement. Governors, breaking pieces, stop, and throw-out motions, yielding springs, safety brakes, and grips, relief valves, safety valves, duplication of valves, are the principal among these.

In the working of machinery, in which movements have to be effected at the will of the hands, many safety appliances exist. Belt shippers are among the most familiar of these. Many hundreds have suffered loss of life or limb in the attempt to throw belts on and off their pulleys by hand, either by being caught between the belt and its pulley, or by projecting. keys, or set screws, &c., catching in the clothing at the time. A fruitful source of accident also is the

loose clothing worn by factory hands, loose sleeves especially. Many again have occurred in consequence of starting engines without first making sure that no one is working among the machinery, or on the other hand through lack of means of stopping them at once when an accident has occurred. Cranes are frequent sources of accident when handled by unskilful and inexperienced men. So are steam boilers.

An ambulance should find a place in every engineering works, and ambulance classes might be generally held with advantage, as they are in some firms. Many accidents, not dangerous in themselves, become fatal through lack of intelligent first aid.

Conducive to the prevention of accidents is a set of stringent printed rules, rigidly enforced. None are so careless as the hands, who require to be protected against their own indifference to, and neglect of common precautions; and no excuse of haste or profit should be allowed to interfere with the safety of employees.

The factory inspectors, backed up by the Home Office, are always ready to give information and advice as to the best methods of preventing accidents. There are right and wrong ways of fencing, and the wide experience of the inspectors qualifies them for giving valuable suggestions to owners of machinery.

Accounts-Factory.-The accounts of a big modern factory are very complicated. They tend to become more so, besides which they are sometimes elaborated and involved to an unnecessary extent by what the writer considers a craze for system, which tends to degenerate into red-tapism.

pick up the threads left by their predecessors. But much more than that is required. It is demanded that in a perfect system the cost of any job shall be readily ascertained in any shop, at any stage of its progress. In many of the older shop systems this has not been the case, but the work has had to be finished before the total costs and the profit or loss could be ascertained even approximately. It is also considered essential that the amount of, and value of any materials, or of work in hand, stock, or order shall be readily ascertained at short notice.

It is further required to ascertain whether men are doing more or less work than at any other periods, a matter which is complicated by the great growth of machine methods. The labour saving due to machines has therefore to be correlated with the mere labour factor, and with the introduction of every new and improved machine and appliance, readjustments become necessary, and prices have to be rearranged. Here too there comes in the question of fair prices, not only for day-work, but for piece-work, and those paid under the bonus, or the premium system.

The accounts of an engineer's factory include the following main heads - Orders, Labour, Materials, Prime Cost, Capital, Profit or Loss. These may be subdivided broadly as follows:

1. ORDERS

The orders are given by foremen to the men by the numbers accompanying the drawings. Orders are verbal, or they are written on cards, or on slips of printed paper. The advantage of a good card system here is its comprehensive ness. Thus, in giving orders from pattern shop to foundry, the foreman of the former sends with the pattern (stamped with the order number for the job) a printed card, on which he writes the order number, the numbers of castings required off, the number of core boxes if such are included, and any remarks relating to pattern alterations, or which might assist the foreman of the foundry in carrying the work through. The latter again passes the card out with the castings, on completion of the order, along with a moulder's card, or the two may be included in one. The weight of the castings is entered thereon, and goes into the stores, and thence back into the general office to be taken charge of by the time clerk, and used in balancing accounts. All work converges finally to the shipping or despatching department, which in a big factory is a distinct one, or in a smaller one, it is merged in the receiving department.

At every stage the question of costs is involved, which may be now considered under the headings already given.

2. Labour.-Labour includes both skilled and unskilled. It comprises all wage-earners from the draughtsmen down to the boys. But as a rule it does not include salaried men, whether in offices or shops, because these do not fluctuate appreciably either in numbers or salaries from year to year. Labour embraces the fluctuating elements, the costs of which go up and down constantly. The salaries properly come under general or standing charges. The leading elements in estimating labour costs are the hours worked, and the rates of wages, including overtime. The methods of payment include that of day-work, piece-work, and that under the premium system.

It is round the wages method of payment for labour that strikes always have, and are always likely to occur. The great and permanent objection to wages is that it does not, and cannot take account of differences in the abilities, energies,

us see the manner of its working, first as it affects the accounts of the factory, and second in its relation to other methods of payment.

In the abstract it is a simple system. There are certain hours worked in a factory, and wages rates are fixed at so much per week of so many hours, or at so much per hour, reckoned only on the basis of the normal week; all over that being paid for at higher rates. The amount of time worked by a man is entered up day by day, and given into the time office, and thence taken to the office of the time clerk, or wages payment clerk. The time is also entered against the jobs on which the man has been engaged, sometimes one job only, sometimes several in the course of a day or week. The checks to the workman's time take the form of time checks passed into a box at the time office, or of a time recorder, in connection with the card system, in which the times of entry and of leaving the works are stamped automatically on the card. Time worked on jobs out of doors has to be kept by a man in charge, or by the workmen themselves.

All the normal hours worked are paid for at the normal rate of wages, irrespective of the degree of intensity of the labour done. Practically the only way to secure a reasonable return from an entire body of men working on day wages is by the exercise of close and constant supervision on the part of shop managers and foremen.

But outside the usual hours of labour at normal rates there is in all shops at some periods the question of overtime, which is always remunerated at rates above the regular rate of wages, notwithstanding that as a general and nearly constant rule the amount of work done per hour is less in amount, or less efficient than that of the normal day. Both day wages at one rate and overtime wages at another have to be cast up in the wages office, to form the first element in the prime cost of labour.

In most works, in some of the departments, for some classes of product, piece-work rates are adopted. Recently the premium system or bonus system has come to supplement or supplant both piece-work and day wages. Although piece-work introduces a fixed price per job in

stead of per hour, and the premium system introduces a normal basis price to which a bonus may be added, yet in each, in engineers' shops the day rate of wages is guaranteed. The men stand to lose nothing in any case, but to gain something. In both piece and premium systems the time worked is entered up precisely as for day wages, only the way in which the job is

taken is stated on the card or time sheet. It may happen that a man will be doing work on both systems, and both will then be entered up suitably. All these entries have to be sorted out in the office, and either kept on their original cards or transcribed into prime cost books.

The costs of labour thus obtained and sorted out in different ledgers are of less permanent value in engineering works than they are in that now very limited number of industries in which hand labour still predominates. They are of less value in progressive engineers' works than in those where methods and machinery remain nearly stationary from year to year. They are of less value too in the machine shop than they are in the foundry and pattern shop. The reason is that old methods may go on from year to year with scarcely any change, and then the introduction of new ones will render the old wage records absolutely useless for purposes of reference. The installation of turret lathes, the substitution of pneumatic or electric tools for hand work, the introduction of drop forging or of machine moulding will at once reduce some labour costs by from, say, 100 to 1,000 per cent. Labour costs therefore are a very fluctuating item in a modern factory, and they can only be accepted as reliable for work that is done under precisely similar conditions. This explains why fresh estimates have to be worked out for different orders at different periods, even though the jobs may be nearly identical in character.

3. Materials. The next element in prime costs is that of materials. These too are subject to great fluctuations in price, hence the desirability of laying in large stocks when prices are low. This applies chiefly to pig and scrap, copper and tin, plates, bars, and angles. Timber does not fluctuate so much, and this therefore is stored in sufficient quantity only to permit of keeping a well-seasoned stock.

Materials involve a good deal of bookkeeping, beginning with a requisition book in which are entered all the materials required for stock or orders. A general receiving book or books is kept at the entrance or entrances to the works, in which everything that comes in is entered, with its weight. These books are taken to the office every day, and their contents transcribed into various ledgers in which a classification is made according to the nature of the materials, and whether they are for stock or orders. These again are compared with the daily invoice books of the general or receiving clerk's office, and cross references are made from one set of books to the other, with paging, usually in red or blue ink.

The materials are stored as most convenient for handling and use. All the small and the valuable stores are kept in a room in charge of a trustworthy storekeeper. But all the heavy raw material, as pig, scrap, plates, bars, angles, timber, &c., are located adjacent to, or in the shops where they have to be used. But in a well-regulated works not a scrap of material can be used without orders given from responsible persons. Whether it be the materials for a bridge, or boiler, or a packet of screws for a pattern, the material is entered up in a book, on a printed slip, or on a card, against the order number, and to the number of the man who has the job, or the chargeman of the

The case stands on a different footing in pig, scrap, sand, plumbago, oil, and similar materials which are for the common use of a shop. They cannot often be entered in this way. But the daily or weekly consumption of the shop is entered in the books, and this affords a periodical check against the total stores, the material used subtracted from the material originally stored, enabling the quantity in stock to be ascertained approximately at any given period.

A second check is that of the entries of materials used on jobs, as weight of metal in castings, amount of timber used in patterns, or by the carpenters. Where this cannot be done, as in the case of sand, plumbago, oil, waste, &c., such go into a general charges book as a subdivision of materials.

These elements, labour, and materials are the