entirely in any appraisal of a public service corporation where the object is either rate-making or purchase of the corporation by the public. One qualification to this statement is needed, however, and that is that the depreciation shall not have gone far enough to result in an average age of plant less than half the life of the plant—that being the ultimate normal operating condition. Engineers have a duty to perform, in making an appraisal of the sort under consideration, which is judicial in its character and should not savor in the least of the pawnshop. The engineer engaged by a public service commission should not for an instant make it his object to "beat down the price," no matter by what far-fetched theory he may effect the result. Nor are engineers inclined to do this, except when they regard themselves merely as agents of the public by whom they are employed. Unfortunately, many appraisers have as yet failed to realize that there is a vital distinction between the dealings that should exist in public affairs and those that actually exist in private matters involving the purchase and sale of property. In the latter case, the buyer usually takes every possible advantage of the helplessness of the seller. Is the seller ignorant? See that he remains so. Is the seller hard-pushed for money? Grind down the price accordingly. Does the seller offer goods which are a bit shop-worn? Dwell on that fact, to the exclusion of all else. Such are the tradesman's arts, and such, the writer fears, have been the arts of some appraisers of public service property. The writer believes that, under one form of agreement or another, nearly every kind of public service can be more economically and better performed by a public service corporation than by the public itself through employees directly hired. But if America is not to pass speedily into Government ownership and operation of all public utilities, there must be a pronounced change of attitude on the part of the public toward capital now invested in public service corporations. Even as engineers, we are apt to be unconsciously influenced in our attitude toward public service corporations, not only because of the present public attitude, but because we are often put to great inconvenience by the ill-considered resistance of the corporations whose property we are called on to appraise for the public. Our duty plainly consists, first, in regarding a public service corporation as a public agent, and, second, in allotting such values that this public agent will receive a full and fair return for every dollar judiciously and honestly spent in building and developing its property. In carrying out this plan, the writer finds it wise to study the entire financial history of a corporation, going carefully through both the construction accounts and the operating accounts from the beginning.