The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-07-19

Chancellor of the Exchequer, in @ re- cent speech, called attention to this fact, and said that more than three times the usual number of bronze coins had been minted since 1897. Ev- cry month one hundred and flfty-siX tons of copper coin are locked up in these meters.
 Fifteen collectors were assigned to ! the Leicester district, and in one day, during which an interested reporter accompanied one of them on his trav- els, they brought in about seventy-fve pounds apiece. Cabs met the collec-
 tors on their rounds and relieved them of their copper burdens. In England and Wales there are altogether about million and 8 half nny-in-the-slot meters.
 The first quarter-in-t -the-slot meters l in New York were installed in 1893, principally south of Houston street, and about two thousand five hundred were put in the first year. There are now in the city some one hundred and sixteen thousand of them, and the gas companies have to use an automatic counting machine to count the coins. The silver is fed into a hopper, and the operator turns crank, throwing the counted coin into a bag. The ma chine never makes a mistake, and
 banks accept the sealed bags as cor lrec:,
 In 1907, it is estimated, there will be three hundred thousand of these me ters in New York. At the lowest es- timate each will buy one dollars worth of gas in month, so that there will be twelve hundred thousand silver
 quarters locked up and taken out of circulation every month It is easy to
 see that this means a shortage of coin l age toward the end of the month, un- less the deficiency is met by the hints.
 The total coinage of silver quarters in the hints of the United States, from their establishment, in 1792, up to January, 1908, was 317,118,196 pieces. lOne-thirteenth of the mintage of this entire time-more than a century-is
 fed into and out of the prepayment meters in one month or a little more.
 The advantages of the prepayment meter are varied, It is easier in some
 cases to keep track of the gas con- sumed when the slot meter is put in, and it does away with the necessity of a deposit, a great advantage to people | of limited incomes. The consumption
 of gas is by this arrangement put on precisely the same basis as the use of coal, or kerosene, or candles, or any
 other commodity-it is paid for before 1 it is used. There is a certain inclina- 1 ton common to human nature to be a little more economical in the use of
 what is already paid for than in the consumption of something which is to 1 be paid for at more or less remote
 time in the future When the quarter in-the slot meter is usd, there is a dis tinct recollection every tim the gas is lighted that when the twenty-five
 cents worth already paid for is used
 ID there will be no more gas till an-
 other quarter is deposited in the slot, and here and there somebody who might otherwise be needless is made economical by that thought, Again, in l houses WHef6 several pcISpIlo dtV uoiil l5
 gas waste can be more directly traced
 to the thoughtless or extrayagant per-
 son by the quarter-in-the-slot meter.
 The meters are sometimes put in un-
 expected and curious places, where no
 one would expect to find thm; quarter
 in-the-slot meters exist in many rooms
 and apartments where they could be
 discovered only by rather clever detec-
 tive work. They are put up in china closets in parlors concealed by book
 shelf curtains, and one man on the
 east side has his under the bed. AL together, this useful and ingenious lit-
 tie device is not only gaining in popu-
 larity, but making the use of gas far
 more general as time goes on,-Gas Logic.