Q. I was told that in some of the earlier issues of the Sanitary Engineer there was an article explaining the percentage a plumber should get on the cost of materials in order to make a fair profit, and that in one case it was of use in satisfying a customer that the bill was a fair one that he considered exorbitant. Will you refer me to it?

A. It appeared in the Sanitary Engineer of February 18, 1878, as follows: " In our last issue we stated under this title that the merchant or banker whose annual transactions are by the million naturally looks upon a gross profit of 30 or 40 per cent. on the part of a plumber as something monstrous, yet on a moment's reflection any fair-minded man will admit that the margin of profit should be governed entirely by the nature of the business, the amount possible to do safely in a year, and the proportion of expense in doing the business to the amount done. To illustrate: In this city there are about nine hundred so-called plumbers, besides a large number of idle journeymen ready to take any job that offers. The average amount of business done by each firm is not over $10,000 annually, including contract work for builders, jobbing, and days' work. As a rule, contract work pays little or no profit to men who do the work properly and pay for the labor and materials, and it is only taken by good parties to keep extra journeymen employed. Allowing a man to do an annual business of even $20,000, what gross profit should he require to pay his business expenses and have left a living and something to lay by for a rainy day? for every man hopes to make something besides shelter, food, and clothing.

Expenses And Losses

"If these figures are correct, and we believe they are, we contend that 30 per cent. average gross profit is not exorbitant, but entirely legitimate. Merchants know that different articles pay varying degrees of profit, and as certain materials used by the plumber are limited to 5 and 10 per cent. margins, others must pay more to make up the average. For instance, the proportion between the different rates of profit may be thus represented in tabular form:

"Few plumbers in this city make $2,700 net annually, notwithstanding the hue and cry made about exorbitant profits, and where it has been made we contend it is not too much, considering the hazards of business, for a man to make, who has the intelligence and capability that would render it safe to employ him to attend to such important matters as house-plumbing. It is, however, too much to pay ignorant men to do imperfect work, and the public should not employ the latter class and thus curtail the business of the former, making it necessary to obtain an even greater margin on a smaller business.

"In this article it is not proposed to insist that any one should pay these profits, but only to show that what in some branches of trade might be exorbitant is in this business only reasonable, legitimate, and necessary, even considering the matter simply from a mercantile standpoint."