The American Architect and Building News,
VOL. XXXIV. Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass. fsJo. 825
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
OCTOBER 17, 1891.
Summary:—
The City Architect’s Office in Boston.—The Woes of an Arehteologist. — An Agreement in regard to Brick-mason’s Apprentices. — Fashionable Jewelry in England — How to improve Jewellers’ Designs. — The Growth of Population in
European Cities. —An Improved Mucilage....................................33 Libraries. — II....................................................................................................35 Ancient Architecture for Students. — XIV........................................37 German Castles. — 1.............................................................................................40 Soft and Hard Wood Floors.........................................................................42 Societies......................................................................................................................43 Illustrations : —
Doorway to House of Jacob C. Rogers, Esq., 231 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass. — Houses on West End Ave. and West 76th St., New York, N. Y. — Dining-room and Hall in House, Corner West End Ave. and West 76th St., New York, N. Y. — House at Portland Heights, Portland, Oregon. — Living-room in the Same House. — Schloss Eltz on the Eltz, Germany. — The Albrechtsburg, Meissen, Germany.
Additional: Tomb at Marseilles, France.-—Cottage at St. Andrau, France. — Doorway of the Thiele-Winkler Palace, Berlin, Prussia. — North Porch, Chartres Cathedral, France. — Memorial Church at Colston Bassett, Notts, Eng. —
Design for a Technical College............................................ .43 Communications : —
A Dishonest Partner. — To Remove Grease from Sinks 43 Notes and Clippings........................... 43 Trade Surveys........................................ 44
W
ITHIN the last year, an investigation has been made into the recent management of the City Architect’s office in Boston, with some curious results. Until very recently, as the figures show, the cost of designing and superintending the city work by salaried officials has been, as a rule, more than ten per cent on the cost of the buildings constructed, or more than twice as much as would have been charged by private architects for the same service; and, if common report is to be credited, the buildings erected have cost far more than is paid by other cities for buildings nearly or quite similar. It is easy to compare the cost of school-houses, which are the structures absorbing most of the City Architect’s attention, with those in other places, and it is said that a Boston schoolhouse has cost nearly twice as much, per scholar, as those of Chicago. Where the surplus money goes to, no one pretends to say ; but the net result of the system appears to be that Boston has been contented to pay its architectural department ten dollars, for every hundred dollars that it expended in getting fifty dollars’ worth of result, while any respectable private architect would have got the same result at a charge of two dollars and a half, besides handing back fifty dollars out of every hundred appropriated. The office, which is temporarily in charge of an accomplished and experienced architect, who has no political connections, is said to be now carried on so economically that the expense of planning and supervision of the recent buildings lias been only three per cent on the cost of the buildings; but with a change of incumbent the old abuses might again appear, and the safest and best way would undoubtedly be to abolish the office altogether, and have the city architectural work done-in Boston as it is elsewhere, by private architects, selected, as far as possible, without regard to personal or political considerations. It is obvious that an architect who has to ask every contractor or workman whom he sees whether he is going to vote for his man or not, or who holds his place on condition of delivering a certain number of votes to the person from whom he holds his appointment, can he no longer the strict and vigilant guardian that a city needs to look after its interests in building matters. An architect rarely does his duty to his employer without wounding the sensibilities of the contractors and workmen with whom he has to deal, and one placed in office for the purpose of making things pleasant all around for a large circle of mechanics has opportunities for doing so only limited by the amount of money which can be secured by appropriation for doing a given quantity of work.
AN over-enthusiastic archseologist has come to grief in California. The young Baron Noi denskjold, a son of the
great Swedish explorer, recently came to this country to study the remains of the prehistoric races of America. Among other things, he visited some of the cliff dwellings, and, apparently innocently, gathered some of the objects to be found there, and sent them to New York to be shipped to Sweden. Unfortunately for him, the cliff dwellings are in the Ute Reservation, and they, with their contents, are, therefore, the property of the United States Government, which, while it does not take any very great interest in them, resents emphatically any attempt on the part of other people to appropriate any part of them; and the young Baron, who is only twenty-three years old, was arrested and jailed. After a preliminary hearing before a justice, he was released, on giving bonds for his appearance before the United States Court, on a charge, as we are told, of violating his passport privileges, although it is not very evident how the holder of a passport is restrained by it from acquiring such bric-a-brac as suits his fancy if he is willing to pay for it. Meanwhile, the consignment of relics has been stopped in transitu, and will be held in New York until the unfortunate explorer’s case is decided.
AN important agreement is said to have been made in Boston
between the Bricklayers’ Union and the Mason-Builders’ Association. Like nearly all other labor associations, the Bricklayers’ Union objects to apprentices, and has long endeavored to have a limit set to the number which each mastermason could take. The masters, on the other hand, have maintained that no body of men had the right to prevent boys from learning a trade, and have steadily refused to limit the number of apprentices to be taken. While the position of the masters in this respect is unquestionably right, the journeymen have complained, apparently with justice, that the masters have set incompetent apprentices, at low wages, to do work which should be done by experienced men at wages suitable for such men; and that not only the trade, but the public, has suffered in consequence. It seems quite likely that this complaint is well founded, and, after several conferences, the masters and men have agreed upon a compromise which does credit to both. Under the new arrangement, each master is authorized to employ as many apprentices as he likes ; but every indentured apprentice must serve at least three years, and, if he is under eighteen when indentured, must serve until he is twenty-one. Each master is bound to give all his apprentices constant employment during their term of indenture, and to afford them opportunity for learning all the branches of the trade, and must pay them wages at the fixed rate of one dollar a day for the first year, with fifty dollars at the end of the year for clothes; a dollar and a quarter a day for the second year, with seventy-five dollars for clothes ; and a dollar and a half a day for the third year, with seventy-five dollars for clothes. The journeymen believe, with reason, that these provisions will tend to restrict the number of apprentices, and improve their quality. One of the worst abuses of the apprentice system has been the facility with which contractors could hire worthless men, under the name of apprentices, set them, at low wages, to do the work of skilled mechanics, and discharge them a few days later. Now, as the real apprentices must be employed for a definite term of three years, and will be well known in the trade, it will be impossible to palm off tramps for them; and the masters, knowing that they cannot discharge any apprentice before his term expires, will he careful to receive only such a number of the most promising boys as they are sure of being able to keep employed; while the boys, who have hitherto been the subject of endless disputes between masters and men, without much benefit to themselves, will profit most of all by the revival of a system which, when properly carried out, secures to apprentices thorough instruction and an assured living afterwards.
THE Builder for September 2(5 contains an excellent article, on modern jewelry, commenting, as may well be supposed, very severely on the sort of design now prevalent. As the fashions in such matters here follow closely those of England, some of the reflections of the writer will be appreciated in this country. “Apparently,” lie says, “modern personal ornaments are not designed for beauty or for real adornment at all; they are designed for the sake of wearing
VOL. XXXIV. Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass. fsJo. 825
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
OCTOBER 17, 1891.
Summary:—
The City Architect’s Office in Boston.—The Woes of an Arehteologist. — An Agreement in regard to Brick-mason’s Apprentices. — Fashionable Jewelry in England — How to improve Jewellers’ Designs. — The Growth of Population in
European Cities. —An Improved Mucilage....................................33 Libraries. — II....................................................................................................35 Ancient Architecture for Students. — XIV........................................37 German Castles. — 1.............................................................................................40 Soft and Hard Wood Floors.........................................................................42 Societies......................................................................................................................43 Illustrations : —
Doorway to House of Jacob C. Rogers, Esq., 231 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass. — Houses on West End Ave. and West 76th St., New York, N. Y. — Dining-room and Hall in House, Corner West End Ave. and West 76th St., New York, N. Y. — House at Portland Heights, Portland, Oregon. — Living-room in the Same House. — Schloss Eltz on the Eltz, Germany. — The Albrechtsburg, Meissen, Germany.
Additional: Tomb at Marseilles, France.-—Cottage at St. Andrau, France. — Doorway of the Thiele-Winkler Palace, Berlin, Prussia. — North Porch, Chartres Cathedral, France. — Memorial Church at Colston Bassett, Notts, Eng. —
Design for a Technical College............................................ .43 Communications : —
A Dishonest Partner. — To Remove Grease from Sinks 43 Notes and Clippings........................... 43 Trade Surveys........................................ 44
W
ITHIN the last year, an investigation has been made into the recent management of the City Architect’s office in Boston, with some curious results. Until very recently, as the figures show, the cost of designing and superintending the city work by salaried officials has been, as a rule, more than ten per cent on the cost of the buildings constructed, or more than twice as much as would have been charged by private architects for the same service; and, if common report is to be credited, the buildings erected have cost far more than is paid by other cities for buildings nearly or quite similar. It is easy to compare the cost of school-houses, which are the structures absorbing most of the City Architect’s attention, with those in other places, and it is said that a Boston schoolhouse has cost nearly twice as much, per scholar, as those of Chicago. Where the surplus money goes to, no one pretends to say ; but the net result of the system appears to be that Boston has been contented to pay its architectural department ten dollars, for every hundred dollars that it expended in getting fifty dollars’ worth of result, while any respectable private architect would have got the same result at a charge of two dollars and a half, besides handing back fifty dollars out of every hundred appropriated. The office, which is temporarily in charge of an accomplished and experienced architect, who has no political connections, is said to be now carried on so economically that the expense of planning and supervision of the recent buildings lias been only three per cent on the cost of the buildings; but with a change of incumbent the old abuses might again appear, and the safest and best way would undoubtedly be to abolish the office altogether, and have the city architectural work done-in Boston as it is elsewhere, by private architects, selected, as far as possible, without regard to personal or political considerations. It is obvious that an architect who has to ask every contractor or workman whom he sees whether he is going to vote for his man or not, or who holds his place on condition of delivering a certain number of votes to the person from whom he holds his appointment, can he no longer the strict and vigilant guardian that a city needs to look after its interests in building matters. An architect rarely does his duty to his employer without wounding the sensibilities of the contractors and workmen with whom he has to deal, and one placed in office for the purpose of making things pleasant all around for a large circle of mechanics has opportunities for doing so only limited by the amount of money which can be secured by appropriation for doing a given quantity of work.
AN over-enthusiastic archseologist has come to grief in California. The young Baron Noi denskjold, a son of the
great Swedish explorer, recently came to this country to study the remains of the prehistoric races of America. Among other things, he visited some of the cliff dwellings, and, apparently innocently, gathered some of the objects to be found there, and sent them to New York to be shipped to Sweden. Unfortunately for him, the cliff dwellings are in the Ute Reservation, and they, with their contents, are, therefore, the property of the United States Government, which, while it does not take any very great interest in them, resents emphatically any attempt on the part of other people to appropriate any part of them; and the young Baron, who is only twenty-three years old, was arrested and jailed. After a preliminary hearing before a justice, he was released, on giving bonds for his appearance before the United States Court, on a charge, as we are told, of violating his passport privileges, although it is not very evident how the holder of a passport is restrained by it from acquiring such bric-a-brac as suits his fancy if he is willing to pay for it. Meanwhile, the consignment of relics has been stopped in transitu, and will be held in New York until the unfortunate explorer’s case is decided.
AN important agreement is said to have been made in Boston
between the Bricklayers’ Union and the Mason-Builders’ Association. Like nearly all other labor associations, the Bricklayers’ Union objects to apprentices, and has long endeavored to have a limit set to the number which each mastermason could take. The masters, on the other hand, have maintained that no body of men had the right to prevent boys from learning a trade, and have steadily refused to limit the number of apprentices to be taken. While the position of the masters in this respect is unquestionably right, the journeymen have complained, apparently with justice, that the masters have set incompetent apprentices, at low wages, to do work which should be done by experienced men at wages suitable for such men; and that not only the trade, but the public, has suffered in consequence. It seems quite likely that this complaint is well founded, and, after several conferences, the masters and men have agreed upon a compromise which does credit to both. Under the new arrangement, each master is authorized to employ as many apprentices as he likes ; but every indentured apprentice must serve at least three years, and, if he is under eighteen when indentured, must serve until he is twenty-one. Each master is bound to give all his apprentices constant employment during their term of indenture, and to afford them opportunity for learning all the branches of the trade, and must pay them wages at the fixed rate of one dollar a day for the first year, with fifty dollars at the end of the year for clothes; a dollar and a quarter a day for the second year, with seventy-five dollars for clothes ; and a dollar and a half a day for the third year, with seventy-five dollars for clothes. The journeymen believe, with reason, that these provisions will tend to restrict the number of apprentices, and improve their quality. One of the worst abuses of the apprentice system has been the facility with which contractors could hire worthless men, under the name of apprentices, set them, at low wages, to do the work of skilled mechanics, and discharge them a few days later. Now, as the real apprentices must be employed for a definite term of three years, and will be well known in the trade, it will be impossible to palm off tramps for them; and the masters, knowing that they cannot discharge any apprentice before his term expires, will he careful to receive only such a number of the most promising boys as they are sure of being able to keep employed; while the boys, who have hitherto been the subject of endless disputes between masters and men, without much benefit to themselves, will profit most of all by the revival of a system which, when properly carried out, secures to apprentices thorough instruction and an assured living afterwards.
THE Builder for September 2(5 contains an excellent article, on modern jewelry, commenting, as may well be supposed, very severely on the sort of design now prevalent. As the fashions in such matters here follow closely those of England, some of the reflections of the writer will be appreciated in this country. “Apparently,” lie says, “modern personal ornaments are not designed for beauty or for real adornment at all; they are designed for the sake of wearing