Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/246

 �This second-hand box gave up when it was called upon to carry heavy rolls of cotton warp

��BEFORE the war, the loss and damage to merchandise on a single Eastern railroad cost more than a million dollars a year! This year it will reach two million dollars — a year in which the Nation is supposed to act as a unit in the prevention of waste. What is the reason? Sim- ply foolish econ- omy. Shippers are using cheap packing materials and weak or second-hand con- tainers.

��Wasting Two Millions

��Loss awaits the shipper who packs goods neither wisely nor well

Such a waste, says the Pennsylvania Railroad, is indefensible. The only way to avoid it is to pack goods properly in strong containers and to mark them plainly, all old marks having been previously removed. Co-operation is also asked of receiving clerks, agents, foremen, car inspectors, loaders, truckers and car packers, that the waste may be eliminated '^ at once. ^

Axes have been discovered shipped in paper boxes, potatoes and onions in flimsy crates, dangerous solutions in leaky barrels and food stuffs in second-hand containers of paper. In one instance, a shipment weighing nearly fifteen

���Is it a wonder the heavy bolts of cloth broke through this insecure, flimsy packing box?

��hundred pounds was packed in a second-hand box made of one-half inch lumber. It fell to pieces en route. Other in- stances of careless packing are shown in the photo- graphs.

Obviously cheap containers lose a shipper more than he saves. Worse than the mere

���Iron castings bulge out of thin gunny-sacks at a wayside station

��Pack axes in paper boxes and this is what happens

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