Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/434

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��Popular Science Monthly

���Professional time-clock punchers operate the clocks for five hundred longshoremen at the Bush Terminal, Brooklyn, N. Y.

��when pressed for time, and as a rule they take the time of five hundred laborers in five minutes. This means that instead of long lines waiting at the windows, the strings of men are short and quick moving. Before each clock is an open window and above it is the sign indicat- ing the numerals checked there, from I to 250; from 250 to 500, etc., for the four clocks will take care of 1 ,000 records. The stevedore shows his brass check or calls out his number as he reaches the window.

��Experts Punch the Time Clock for Slow Stevedores

EVEN in this age of specialization it is not considered necessary to hire an expert to punch your time clock, that detail being left to the worker in the average industrial or commercial plant. The operation seems simple enough. Merely swing the indicator about the dial with its circle of numbers, stop at the right number and register your time by a swift pressure of the hand.

But if a plant employs a large number of men it may be found economical to employ not one but four expert time clock punchers, operating as many instruments, and the saving of working minutes runs up into a total of days and months in a short period.

At the huge Bush Termi- nal in Brooklyn, N. Y., five hundred longshoremen are employed every day on the average, magnificently mus- cled giants well fitted for the work of juggling pig iron and sacks of coffee, but with finger tips far from delicate and perhaps a bit slow. Therefore it is about as well as they can do to punch their own time at the rate of six or seven stevedores a minute. With four clocks, that would be twenty-eight a minute at their maximum speed.

The professional time- clock punchers can handle two hundred men a minute

��A Sanitary Dining Gar. No Hospital Can Be Cleaner

ANEW dining car on one of the western railroads has some unique sanitary features. The kitchen is ventilated so thoroughly that dust and cinders cannot enter the car. A continuous flushing ar- rangement keeps the receptacle for milk and cream clean, and the fish is kept in a separate refrigerator. A fan outside the car at the rear drives out the odors. The car cost $30,000. It seats thirty-six passengers.

��Dried figs are responsible for the keen expression of this very ancient Katrina of the markets

��This Shrewd Little Marketwoman Is Made of Figs

A DOLL with which young- sters can be amused on rainy days, and which lends itself to a curious effect in decoration may be made from dried figs and bits of cloth from the scrap-bag. The little marketwoman shown in the accompanying illustration is a good ex- ample of the results to be obtained. The stem of the fig makes a characteristic nose. The eyes are those of an old discarded bisque doll. The mouth is a mere incision in the fig skin and the neck is an- other smaller fig pressed up into the head. The basket is also a fig with a worsted handle.

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