The increased cost of a year's lighting due to these charges will amount
to only 10 or 15 per cent, on the additional capital sunk. The extra
capital sunk does not in any way increase the maintenance charges; and
if, by having a large holder, additional security and trustworthiness are
obtained, or if the holder leads to a definite, albeit illusive, sense of
extra security and trustworthiness, the additional expenditure may well
be permissible or even advantageous.
The argument is sometimes advanced that inasmuch as for the same, or a
smaller, capital outlay as is required to instal a non-automatic
apparatus large enough to supply at one charging the maximum amount of
light and heat that can ever be needed on the longest winter's night, an
automatic plant adequate to make gas for two or three evenings can be
laid down, the latter must be preferable, because the attendant, in the
latter case, will only need to enter the generator-house two or three
times a week. Such an argument is defective because it ignores the
influence of habit upon the human being. A watch which must be wound
every day, or a clock which must be wound every week, on a certain day of
the week, is seldom permitted to run down; but a watch requiring to be
re-wound every other day, or a fourteen-day clock (used as such), would
rarely be kept going.
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