Produced by Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
SCAMPING TRICKS AND ODD KNOWLEDGE
OCCASIONALLY PRACTISED UPON PUBLIC WORKS.
CHRONICLED FROM THE CONFESSIONS OF SOME OLD PRACTITIONERS.
BY
JOHN NEWMAN, ASSOC. M. INST. C.E.,
AUTHOR OF
'EARTHWORK SLIPS AND SUBSIDENCES UPON PUBLIC WORKS'; 'NOTES ON CONCRETE
AND WORKS IN CONCRETE'; 'IRON CYLINDER BRIDGE PIERS'; 'QUEER SCENES OF
RAILWAY LIFE.'
E. & F. N. SPON, 125, STRAND, LONDON. NEW YORK: 12, CORTLANDT STREET.
1891.
PREFACE.
The following pages have been written with the view to record a few
scamping tricks occasionally practised upon public works, and to name
some methods founded on practical experience adopted by sub-contractors
and others to cheaply and quickly execute work.
All who have had the direction or charge of an extensive or even
comparatively insignificant public enterprise will agree that it is
impossible for a resident or contractor's engineer to know the manner
in which everything is proceeding on his division, and in some measure
he is compelled to rely upon others; nevertheless, it is quite as
important to ascertain that the work is carried out according to the
specification and drawings as to elaborate a perfect specification and
then have to partly leave the execution to the care of the beneficent
fairies.
If a finger-post has been correctly pointed in the direction in which a
favourable field for scamping tricks may exist, the author's object in
writing this book will have been attained.
To the less experienced, the incidents and scrap-knowledge described
may be more particularly useful, and on consideration it was thought
that the conversational tone adopted would best expose the subject and
indicate the ethics of somewhat conscience-proof sub-contractors and
workmen, and also the way in which their earnest endeavours to practise
the science of scamping may be exercised upon materials and under
circumstances not especially referred to herein.
J. N.
LONDON, 1891.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER II.
SCREW PILES--GENERAL CONSIDERATION--MANIPULATION FOR "EXTRA
PROFIT" 3
CHAPTER III.
SCREW PILES--DETAILS 13
CHAPTER IV.
IRON PILES--ARRANGEMENT--DRIVING--SINKING BY WATER-JET 25
CHAPTER V.
TIMBER PILES--PILE-DRIVING--GENERAL CONSIDERATION 32
CHAPTER VI.
TIMBER PILES--MANIPULATION FOR "EXTRA" PROFIT 42
CHAPTER VII.
MASONRY BRIDGES 53
CHAPTER VIII.
TUNNELS 61
CHAPTER IX.
CYLINDER BRIDGE PIERS 69
CHAPTER X.
DRAIN PIPES--BLASTING, AND POWDER-CARRIAGE 76
CHAPTER XI.
CONCRETE--PUDDLE 85
CHAPTER XII.
BRICKWORK--TIDAL WARNINGS--PIPE JOINTS--DREDGING 93
CHAPTER XIII.
PERMANENT WAY 103
CHAPTER XIV.
"EXTRA" MEASUREMENTS--TOAD-STOOL CONTRACTORS--TESTIMONIALS 114
CHAPTER XV.
MEN AND WAGES--"SUB" FROM THE WOOD--A SUB-CONTRACTOR'S SCOUT AND
FREE TRAVELLER 121
SCAMPING TRICKS AND ODD KNOWLEDGE
OCCASIONALLY PRACTISED UPON PUBLIC WORKS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
"Take this letter to my old partner as quickly as you can. Wait for an
answer, and come back straight."
"All right, sir."
"Now, my wife, when my old partner arrives, leave the room. I want the
coast clear as I am going to talk and have a sort of mutual confession
of some tricks and dodges we have played and learned during the last
forty years or so to get a bit 'extra' on the quiet; and forty years
knocking about with your eyes bound to be on full glare ought to teach
one a thing or two, and they have. They have! Yes; and I have been in
the swim.
"Stir up the fire, if only to keep things all alike and as hot as
possible; and put a couple of glasses handy, and some water and....
"So you've got back. Where is the letter?"
"Have got no letter, sir; but it is all right; your old partner will be
round about 7 o'clock and will stay till he is turned out, so he said."
"Oh! I am glad."
"Why, sir, he is knocking now."
"So he is."
"Here I am, old chap, what's the matter?"
"I feel pasty, but am better now you have come. Bring your chair near
the fire. Well, I want to talk to you on the quiet very badly. It will
do me good, and I am sure it will not be long before the white muslin
is spread over me and I'm still in death. You've come to stop?"
"Yes, as long as you like."
"That is good, and I am glad and feel better now you have said it.
Before I begin, taste our home-brewed elder. It's all right, for my
wife was a cook, but it's a long time ago; and between you and me, my
profits don't run to providing her with as large an assortment of
materials as she says is necessary to keep her fairly up to art in the
cookery department."
"That is very good--the best I have tasted. Well, what is it, old
partner? Shake fins."
"It's to talk over old times, and the tricks and dodges we have played,
and known others do, to get 'extra' profit on the different works we
have been."
"A kind of confession?"
"That's it. Don't laugh. I can't help it now."
"I understand you. Start the fun, and I will follow."
"We can talk pretty to each other, and lucky the young master is not
here, for he would think that we are as bad as old Nick himself; still,
we have not done many tricks for some time, and could, perhaps, put him
up to a thing or two concerning the execution of work."
"Very likely; but we are all tarred with the same brush; it's only a
question of quantity and thickness and what colour the paint is."
"I suppose we are bound to work up an excuse somehow or other; and if I
moralize a bit tender at first, by way of a diversion, you won't mind,
for it is part of the stock in trade of such rare old sharks as us, and
I will cut it as short and tasty as I can.
"I was brought up right, like you; and many a time have had my shoulder
patted by the good folks and been told not to think of myself too much,
and to remember the feelings of others. In my salad days, you know, I
used to think whether or not it was coming it rough on chaps, innocent
unborn babes that will have to work in the next century, should the
world hold out till then, putting in too strong work, and said to
myself, Is it acting kindly towards them? No, I said, it is not
treating them right to give them so much trouble to make alterations. I
won't call them repairs and additions, nor improvements. I soon
humbugged myself into thinking it was not being really benevolent to
those who will have to work when we are all lying flat, and I hope
quiet--but there, of course, such thoughts hardly make one act
honestly; however, I have done moralizing now, and perhaps it ill
becomes me, and I will have no more of it or it may stop my tongue. Now
to business, and I am going to speak pretty freely."