120 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. VIII
tary form it is called expense; If it is in the form of human
exertion it is called labor. Tt includes all of what economists
have called cost, i.e. labor, trouble, expense, and sacrifices of
all kinds.
An instrument very seldom yields services without in-
volving some disservices. A dwellin
not only gives off services called shelter, but also occasions
disservices in the form of labor (or expense) for renewals,
painting, cleaning, caretaking, insurance, and taxes, Any
disagreeable event occasioned by that house is a disservice,
Just as any agreeable event is a service. Again, while
a saddle horse performs services in giving its owner a
daily ride, it performs disservices in being stabled, fed,
and shod. A farmer gets services out of his land when it
yields him erops; but to get these services he has to put
fertilizer, seed, labor, and expense into that land. A rail-
way performs a vast service of transportation, hauling
passengers and commodities, but it requires a prodigious
amount of coal, supplies, and labor to keep it going.
Disservices are not essential to the idea of wealth; an
article of wealth sometimes offers services without any dis-
services. When disservices exist they are usually over-
balanced, in the estimation of the owner, by prospective
services. As soon as the disservices of an article of wealth
preponderate, in the est mation of its owner, over the serv-
ices, it is regarded as “more trouble than it is worth,”
is cast aside and ceases to be wealth. In the meantime
such articles, if regarded as owned at all, constitute a
sort of wealth of negative utility, — Jevons calls them,
“discommodities.” They are never of great importance
and need receive no special attention. The chief examples
of such articles are garbage, ashes, sewage, carrion, rubbish,
and waste.
It has already been observed that services and
ices, like wealth, are measured in two ways — in
and value — and that the quantity of each gs
g house, for ins ance,
disserv-
quantity
ervice is
