A VISIT TO AN EFFICIENCY. 'EXHIBITION • !TIN soldiers and
trains never appealed to me as a child, but anything to do with documents exercised a strange fascination • over my youthful mind. Putting papers away, arranging, classifying, docketing them, was my curious joy. A typewriter thrilled me, • with its 'keyboard and its carriage that could be made to jump and ring. A card index, then as-young as I, afforded me hours of amusement.
Some 'of this early delight in documents and their accessories came back to me the other day when I wan- 'clered through a Business Efficiency Exhibition, inspecting the newest appliances for simplifying the clerical work of -the' world: • • • The young lady who showed me the Remington Ac- - counting -machine would have been surprised had she -known that I. regarded that marvellous instrument— surely the last word in mechanical ingenuity—merely as a toy. Yet so it, was to 'me. It Nell print a lone list of names, the pay due to each person, subtract the deduc- tions for insurance, &c., add the extra pay for overtime, and total the whole sum, often extending to six columns, with a Papal infallibility. If, by any chance, the oper- ator copies the sum down wrong, the Remington will refuse to go on working and will lock its keyboard until she corrects her error. For three hundred pounds this- faithful and intelligent creature will come to your office and work every hour in twenty-four if you wish, without asking for anything in return but an occasional drop of oil. What a superhuman thing it is !
Then there is the Noiseless Remington. Three of these silent slaves were in operation close to me. Words appeared on the foolscap before them, building them- selves into sentences where nothing had been before, even as Solomon's temple arose without sound of hammer.
The Dictaphone is another almost sentient work of man. I first saw it in operation years ago, in the Editorial Office of the Montreal Gazelle. In the midst of telephone calls, scurrying messengers, urgent galley proofs and the [complex confusions of our civilization; the managing Editor of a daily newspaper works under a pressure that outsiders hardly realize. " I should never get through my work without this machine," the Editor told me, snatching the tube at his side and speaking a memorandum into its flexible and attentive ear. The Dictaphone is always waiting, always willing, truly a marvel of this later age. Mr. Arthur Brisbane, whose daily syndicated articles in the Hearst papers are tele- graphed all over the United States to five million readers; uses one of these machines in his motor-car, so .I am told, in order not to lose track of a single unforgiving moment of leisure.
Then there are the modern mailing appliances and methods, machines which will stamp and count thousands of letters an hour, and which fix the stamps electrically. But this is not a catalogue of efficiency devices, but the record of a ramble-in a field I love.
Messrs. Kenrick and Jefferson's rainbow-coloured reminder slips at once fascinate and alarm me. How often have I seen that sinister remark printed on the orange one, beginning, " As the above account . . ." This firm produces all sorts of fascinating loose-leaf ledgers and card-indices.
Then there is National Crimpit, a machine whose name alone justifies mention ; it is an ingenious device for binding papers• together in the twinkling of an eye. A new sort of • paper-fastener is the " Acco "—new to me, at any rate. Not only does this clip economize time and space, but it also prevents that bad habit which papers sometimes fall into, where a -lot of them are thrown together, of • embracing irrelevant documents.
Among inventions for- great captains of industry, I looked with awe upon .the Dictograph Telephone. " You can concentrate all your employees," I read, here on your desk so that their voices (and their brains) are available by the mere pressure of a key." How long, I wonder, shall 1-have to-tap out articles on my typewriter before I scale the heights. of success and merely press a button to have a brain at my service I' I have said that these things are toys to me. But they are toys,that our business men could well afford to play- with: Show an American merchant a simpler method of handling his invoices, or a new way of follow- ing up his " prospects," and he will be hugely pleased. But ,in England, unfortunately, we -are still too conser- vative. We do not -sufficiently appreciate the fact that labour-saving:devices will -bring us better business, -not only in -the factory-but also in the office.
' F: YEATS-BROWN
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