The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-12

mistake, and if there is an error all
 that is necessary is to go back to the
 man who first punched the card and see
 if his work was done correctly. After
 the papers leave the machines they are hound into books. which contain the
 ful reports of the business and that with
 out the scratch of pen Moreover, the
 work is so condensed that it requires
 c7iv six or seven volumes of this kind
 of record to detail all the expenditures
 ut the navy for one year. The same work formerly took an enormous number of books which were kept in pen and ink every calculation being subject to the mathematical skill of the clerk and hav- ing to be checked again and again to know that they were correct.
 And then the addressographs and the machines for making the stencils for the thousands of addresses and accounts to
 be Kept There are So0.00o men in the
 service of the navy. ana by the present system of allotments and war risk in- surance. the hundreds of thousands of the families of the men on the seas have to be corresponded with, and, in some cases. checks sent every month. Each of these with whom the navy does husi- ness is represented by stencil made of aluminium in which is stamped, by a machine like a linotype, his name and address. This is put with many others in it's proper order in the machine. which prints the names upon checks or cards or upon the envelope in which they go out through the mails.
 There are also machines for signing | the checks. 90,oo0 of which go out every month One of these machines consists of a table with a framework above it holding 10 fountain pens. The frame iS adiuSted ctc on a different check so that the cashier can sign 10 checks at one time by nov | inf the penholder connected with the 1 framework The work is done so fast that 1000 checks are signed in 10 minutes and each bears the actual autograph
 of the man who does the signing. Even | the cutting apart of the checks is done 1 by machinery. The machine will cut eight or ten at a time, running off thou sands day.
 1 As I went through the various rooms learned something of how the purchases l for the navy are made. The articles bought include almost everything under and there is chain of cost-inspection officers which covers all the purchases 1 of the r shipyards which are building | new vessels, and with the 50 yards do- l ing repair work, as well as the manufac- turing plants making the ordnance The | contracts are so worded that no decrease 1 is made for war profits and income taxes i and on certain fixed contracts reductions 1 amounting to millions of dollars have been made after going over the manu- l lecturers cost items.
 1 For instance, take some of the savings 1 I have a list of certain items bought | in 1916, which show a saving of more than S2.0oo,0o0. Of this s20,0oo came from buying tin at Singapore, near where the | tin mines are located. Sixty thousand dollars was saved by going to Chile for nitrates, and s100,000 was saved in the 1 New York navy yard on the scrap of l brass and some other metals. The scrap heap had just 1000 GOO pounds of this stun and it was worth just 10 cents per pound, the sun-there are 5000 different items and they come from all parts of the world. The navy has men who keep track l of the changes and conditions of the bus mess 1t deals direct with the manufac- turers and in many cases it goes to foreign markets for certain supplies,
 Much of this work is done under contract