"You ought to be able to guess that," the chief said reproachfully.
"For instance if a card is punched 'Wf' for Wife and also is punched
'Male' that card is sure to be wrong, and if 'Emp' for employer is
punched on the same card as an age punch showing the person to be a
three-year-old youngster, the card is wrong. There are twenty-three
different possibilities of error which are checked by this verification
machine, and for any one of these twenty-three reasons a card is thrown
out."
"For example if 'Na' for naturalized is punched on the same card as 'N'
for native-born, and things of that sort, I suppose?" the boy
questioned.
"And many others of similar character," the older man agreed.
"But how about insufficiently punched cards?" queried Hamilton. "I can
see that it would be easy to arrange the wires so as to catch really bad
inconsistencies, but supposing a figure were only left out, there would
be no contact made to show the error."
"Except in the age column," was the reply, "there is supposed to be a
punch in every field and only one. Any field which does not have a
contact from every card registers its disapproval by throwing out that
card.
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