Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-11-30
. SOAP.
150.00O Cakes Needed Daily to Sup-
 ply Trains Out of New York.

ply Trans Out of New York.
 What might seem an insignificant matter, the equipping of trains of cars with cakes of soap for the use of passengers, is, according to pur- charing agent of a great railroad. a very heavy item of expense every year. It is estimated, according to this authority, that no fewer than l 150,00 individual cakes of soap leave New York city every day as part of the equipment of railroad | trains.
 One railroad alone spends some- thing like $160,000 year to equip the wash rooms at either end of the coaches. The hundreds of thousands of cakes that are used every day in public lavatories, in hotels, office buildings and department stores form big item of expense, although it is distributed among many purchasers. There is a considerable waste which cannot be controlled because of the disappearance of the cakes of soap before they have been used more than two or three times. The expenditure for this commodity could | probably be more than cut in, half if it were in the power of the purchas- CTS to control the waste.
 We spend thousands of dollars a year for that one little commodity, a purchasing agent of large rail- road system said a few days ago. Every time train of cars leaves the station in Jersey City or the soap has to be provided for both ends of each one of the coaches.
 The man in charge of the train has delivered to him supply that will satisfy the needs of the passen- gers until the train has made it's trip. no matter where its destination is. One railroad company which I know sends out 30,000 cakes of soap every day.
 The only trouble about the mat ter is that many of the cleaners and other employees packet some of the cakes of soap, and than again some of the passengers who have failed to provide themselves with a cake of toilet soap filch the cakes before any of them have been used more than once or twice. In this way thous- ands of cakes of soap are lost every day, but what can We do
 If we could control the waste we would be able to save thousands of dollars a year. It is good thing for us that some of the travelling public fights shy of the use of the soap we supply, not because there is anything unwholesome about the soap itself, but because they seem to feel that the hygienic conditions surrounding the soap are not all that they should be. I know that one woman friend of mine told me that she believed that germs could be communicated through the water that accumulates around cake of soap in the holder.
 Another very large item of ex- pense is that of the laundry. We spend thousands of dollars every year in providing individual towels for travellers.
 "The roller towel disappeared years ago, not only from railroad trains but you rarely see roller towel now in any public washroom in a hotel or office building. There was such a fuss about it on the part of the patrons that it had to be given up. even in our machine shops the roller l towel is no longer used.
 Tt is such incidental expenses as | these that the public does not take | into consideration that makes the 1 maintenance of railroad very ex- pensive thing"