St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-11-24
THE LUCKY BIDDERS.
The County Printing Committee
Award Contracts,

The County Printing Committee
Award Contracts.
There was quite large attendance
at the meeting of the committee on
printing of the Ramsey county commits
sioners last evening, nearly every print
ing house in the city having a repre-
sentative present to look after its inter
ests in the bimonthly bidding for sup
plies for the several county offices.
There was quite large amount of
printing TO be let. among the batch
being the tax books for the county
treasurer tor the year 1894, which
amounted to Isl books. This was desig-
mated as Exhibit IA" and there was
some sharp and close bidding by the
larger printing establishments of the
city. The highest amount for the en-
tire Job was bid by Ii. M. Smyth 81
Co., S346, and the lowest by the Volks-
zeitung. S261.60. Some of the amounts
between these two figures run very close
as will be seen by glance at the fol-
lowing bids of other firms: Herald,
1864; Brown, Treacy & Co., s2S0.75;
Dispatch, 1925; IL. L. Collins. go;
Pioneer Press, S327.40; Price Il McGill,
1927. AS stated before, this order COM
prises the entire set of tax books for the
county treasurer for the ensuing year,
and under the system that was in vogue
last year the same work cost over double
this amount in spite of the fact that this
year the specifications called for linen
paper instead of Dakota, the linen paper
being four cents higher, and this year
the books are bound in cloth with
Russia backs and corners instead
of the cheaper board binding of last
year. The showing in this particular
instance gives evidence of a vast saving
by the county commissioners in the
printing bills of the county, aud at the
same ratio and proportion for all print
ing during the entire year, the total OF
former years will surely be less by at
least one-half. While it is true that the
work being bid off at the present is
going at a very low rate, owing to the
scarcity Of work in the various offices, 1t
can readily be seen by glance at the
figures given above, that even with
full complement of work on hand. and
every bidder figuring on good average
profit, the work would still be over one
third less than it was under the contract
system, or what is known as the state
minimum system, which was in vogue
last year.
Besides the above work there were
numerous smaller jobs LET, including
the court calendar for December, which
went to the Herald for $50. the next
lowest bidder being the Pioneer Press
at $3.50. This bid of the Herald Is So
less than it was last month for the same
amount of work, they having bid in the
Job at S65 for that month. The board
of control had eighteen small jobs,
which were distributed among six of
the ten firms bidding, all at remark
ably low rate. The following is a de-
tailed list of all the work let:
Exhibit "A"-V olksZeItung, S261.60.
Exhibit "B'-Jobs l, 2. 3. 4. 5. Herald.
Job So, VolksZeitung. JOB 6, litho-
graphing, Price Il McGill.
Exhibit "C'-Jobs IL and Is, H. M.
Smyth. Job 4, Pioneer Press. Jobs l,
?. 8, IL, Is, II and Is. Herald, Jobs
and II, Dispatch. jobs 8, z, and 9,
Volkszeitung. Jobs 10 and 16, l.. D.
Bissell.
Special Bids-Job l, H. NJ. Smyth.
Jobs 2 and 3, Volkszeitung.
The members of the printing commit
tee of the county commissioners are:
Paul Lavallee, chairman; Robert Seng
and David Hanna, all of whom were
present last evening and expressed
themselves as very we'll pleased with
the present system, as inaugurated by
themselves at the expiration of the old
contract last August.