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Show Mr William Garrett made reoently the statement that wire nails are now sold so cheaply that if a caipentor drops a nail it is cheaper to let it lie than to stoop and pick it up, and it is olaimed that one keg out of fiv6 "s never used, but poos to waste. A statistician figuring figur-ing this out, and assuming that it takes a carpenter ten seconds to pick up a nail, and that his time is worth 30 cents an hour, remarks that tho redbvory of tho nail ho has dropped would cost .083 cents. Tho money value of the nail is 0077 cents that is, it would not pay to pick up ten nails if it took ten pofi-onds pofi-onds of time worth SO cents an hour. Ordinary mon who are not very quiok can, 1 owever, pick up a nail on a moderately mod-erately clean floor in five seconds. Assuming As-suming that this is a better average than tho ten seconds, and that we are paying the carpenter only 25 cents an hour, it will still cost to recover the nail .0347 cents, which is nearly five times tho valuo of an individual nail. There is theroforo a considerable factor of safety in tho original calculation, and wo are-bound are-bound to believe that It will not pay to pick up nails. Snch a calculation brings out clearly the marvelous reduction in prices due to invontive genius. The lurking fallacy is that while it may not pay to stoop for each nail it still niaj bo worth while for an economical man at the end of his work to stoop down onco and sweep up in a single handful the nails he has been dropping all day '-St. Louis Glolo-T"emocrnfc |