Business English: A Practice Book by Rose Buhlig

=Exercise 305= Books that will Suggest Topics for Talks CROCKER, U. H., The Cause of Hard Times. FONDA, ARTHUR J., Honest Money. GIBBS, H. C., A Bimetallic Primer. MCADAMS, GRAHAM, An Alphabet in Finance. NEWCOMB, SIMON, The A B C of Finance. NORTON, S. F., Ten Men of Money Island, or The Primer of Finance. REEVES, JOHN, The Rothschilds: The Financial Rulers of Nations. WHITE, HORACE, Money and Banking. =Exercise 306= Write the following from dictation: 1 THE DAILY ROUTINE OF THE CLEARING HOUSE Each bank sends two clerks to the Clearing House: a delivering clerk and a settling clerk. There are three rows of seats running through the clearing room lengthwise, one in the center and one on each side parallel with it. The settling clerks occupy these seats and each one has a sufficient amount of desk room in front of him to do his work on, his space being separated from his neighbors' by a wire screen. The delivery clerks, with their packages of checks in separate envelopes, stand in the open space in front of the settling clerks. At two minutes before 10 o'clock the manager, whose station is an elevated open space at the extreme end of the room, strikes a bell. The movement has all the precision of a military drill. When the second bell sounds, at exactly 10 o'clock, each delivery clerk takes one step forward, hands the proper package to the settling clerk of the bank next to him, drops the accompanying ticket showing the amount into an aperture like a letter box, and places before the settling clerk his schedule, on which the latter places his initials. Thus the procession moves uninterruptedly until each delivery clerk has presented to each settling clerk the proper package and ticket. Usually this part of the operation is completed in ten minutes. Meanwhile the proof clerk, who occupies a desk near the manager, has entered the claims of each bank under the head "Bank Cr." on a broad sheet of paper. Inasmuch as the amount of each bank's claim against the Clearing House (entered under the head "Banks Cr.") is the sum of all the tickets which its delivery clerk has pushed into the letter boxes of the other banks, it follows that all the tickets of all the banks should equal all the entries under that head. The next step in the operation is for each settling clerk to arrange the amounts of all the tickets in his letter box in a column, add it up, and send the amount to the proof clerk, who transcribes and arranges it according to the bank's number under the head "Banks Dr.," so that the debit of Bank A shall be on the same line with its credit. Then the difference between the two will show how much the bank owes the Clearing House or how much the Clearing House owes the bank. The time occupied by the settling clerks in arranging their tickets and adding up the columns is about half an hour. As fast as these footings are completed, they are sent to the proof clerk, who puts them in the debit column opposite the credits of the banks, respectively. When all are completed, if no error has been made, the footings of the credit and debit columns must be exactly equal and the footings of the two other columns, which show the differences, must be exactly equal. Then these differences are read off slowly and in a distinct tone by the manager, so that each settling clerk can write down the sum that his bank has to pay or to receive. As time is money at the Clearing House, a fine is exacted for every error and every delay in making footings, for every disobedience of the orders of the manager, or for every instance of disorderly conduct.--Horace White: _Money and Banking_. 2 The Treasury, in connection with its money washing, has asked national banks to exercise more care in sending in money for redemption. Banks frequently put into the same bundle, good notes, bad notes, and notes of different denominations. When they are mixed in this way, it requires a good deal of work to separate the money. The Treasury thinks that the banks could do this work, so that, when the money reaches Washington, it could easily be separated by packages instead of each package having to be separated first. The Assistant Secretary says he believes that, when he gets the subject worked out in detail, new washed money will be returned to the bank in any denomination desired on the same day that it is received; that money unfit for laundering will be destroyed and new money issued. This expeditious handling of money sent in for redemption cannot, however, be attained, he admits, without the co-operation of the banks. In a short time, he believes, all banks will see that it is to their benefit to do this.