The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-12-16
Public Bridges.

bridge contractors that the ordinar
methods of letting highway bridge
are very imperfect, and capable {
great improvement.
When q county is in need of one O
more bridges, it is customary to max
all appropriation, and appoint a com
mittee to advertise for proposals, ex
anime plans, and close contract 70
the work. Sometimes the advertise
ment will give length of spans, widtl
of roadway, and live load per squar'
foot to be provided for; seldom more
and frequently much less than this
Very frequently the only information
given is that the committee at q certain
time and place will receive proposals
for bridging certain streams, the res
being left to the bidder. Occasionally
when the committee desires to do it.
whole duty, it will employ a local en-
gineer or surveyor, whose experience
has usually been foreign to bridge
building, to draw up a specification
and the reading of such specification
often has on the bridge fraternity a
bout the same effect as one of Arte'
mus Wards best efforts, and the work
is benefited corresE ondingly.
All bridge companies, classed as
highway companies have agents scat
tered through the various States, a GER
tain amount of territory being assigned
to each. 1t is their business to keep
posted on all lettings looming off In
their territories. A day or two in ad.
vance of the time for which a letting
is advertised, agents to the number OF
from ten to twenty-five will be gath
cred on the spot taking such measur.
ment and levels as they car without
instrument and preparing their strain
sheets and specifications TO-: the letting.
If there is a fair prospect of being able
to put up a job on the country, the
competitors call a secret meeting to de-
eide the following questions: First, the
greatest sum that they consider it
would be safe to ask for the bridge;
second, the least sum that will build a
bridge as light as the country will
accept; third who shall have the con-
tract; fourth, how shall the profits be
divided.
It is readily seen that a letting under
such circumstances is a farce. The
representatives of the various compa-
MES receive liberal salaries, and their
travelling expenses are necessarily
heavy, but until bridge commissioners
adopt a different policy the bridge
cannot do business without
such representation. Bridge compa-
MES do not do business for fun or for
the glory there is in it, but to make
money and pay their stockholders a
dividend on their investment, and 1t
follows without argument, that all this
unnecessary expense
is BORNE ULTIMATELY BY THE
COUNTY.
So long as it remains obligatory on
the bridge company to send a rerres-
entative to the locality before he can
hope to receive a contract, it is but just
and right that the county should
should pay the cost. Like the over
coat that appeared invisible in the
drummer's expense account, the coun-
ty does not see this charge for person.
attendance on lettings, but it Is there
all the same.
A small pool simply means getting
back expenses. A large pool amount
ing sometimes to 100 per cent. of cost,
means not only this but a good profit
in addition.
1t frequently happens that those
who do not get the work make more
money out of it than those who do, and
his fact has called in to the field nu-
nerous '~'scalpers" who represent no
company but travel simply for the
profit in pools.
The existence of pools and the prob
of the equity paying too much
money for a bridge is not however the
worst feature of the system. The coun-
y has no protection againts unsafe
md worthless bridges. Some of the
employ engineers who can
correctly design a bridge, and have
shops which can produce good work,
while other companies can neither
make good designs nor turn out good
work, but the lowest bidder almost in
takes the work. When every
hing goes to the satisfaction Of the
and profits are large, the coun-
", providing the contract is let to one
If the best companies, has some little
show of receivinga suitable and safe
but when the builders cannot
agree on terms, or when the appropri-
alton is too small, and it comes to a
fight, every nan bidding independent
y and at the lowest possible figure,
there is no show whatever that the
will get a good and safe bridge;
if the bridge will hold itself up until
the contractor gets his money out of
it, he is satisfied, and if it falls down
afterward and kills a few peo-
pie it passes as an act of providence.
It lisa deplorable fact that no highway
company can succeed in bust
ness, and do uniformly honest, con-
work. They may know per-
fectly well what ought to be done and
prefer to do it, but r forced to do as
their competitors do or 60 to the wall.
The larger bridge companies, known
as railroad companies, whose work
is confined exclusively to railroad
bridges and who have no agents, are
frequently invited to bid on highway
work. The writer has been connected
with such companies the greater part
OF his life and has made not less than
a hundred honest estimates and low
nailed bids, in reply to such invitation
but he does not call to mind any con-
tracts that has resulted from them. In
fact when dealing directly with COM
missi oners or non-specialists all time
given to such work is a waste of effort.
The agents of the various companies
on the spot havea way of making the
committee believe that black is white,
and ifa bidder has no representative
to defend him, 1t is better for him to