Cheque

“ Here the system presents to us its highest degree of interest: the possessors of account books, adherents of the clearing service, can discharge their debts one to the other by the transfer of accounts. It is sufficient to write at the back of the cheque: to be carried to the credit of account No ..., with the name of the holder of the account and his address. In this case the amount of the cheque is placed to the debit of the person who issued it and to the credit of the person in whose favour it is drawn. ”

“ Miss Smith soon learns that all her trades- men's bills may be paid in the same way, with- out going to the bank to draw the money, and with the advantage that the cheque is not only a proof of payment, but that she has also a record of her accounts in the bank pass-book. ”

“ A CHEQUE AND A CHECK
One morning I received a cheque for nine hundred dollars from Widgeon & Co.—payment for The Great Quietus, now running serially in the Uplift. Did I wave it in the air? Did I do a war-dance of delight? No. I looked at it with sober sadness. The struggle was over. Henceforward it was the easy money, the work that brought in ten times its meed of reward. Alas! how I was doomed to prosperity! I banked the cheque with a heavy heart.
Always was it thus. I vowed each book would be my last. I would drop out of the best-seller writing game, take to the country and raise calves. ”

“ Every Saturday morning a man comes to my bank to cash a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds. (How he gets through all that money in a week I have never had the courage to ask him.) Every Saturday morning I come to my bank to cash a cheque for—well, whatever it happens to be, you know.
The trouble is that we nearly always coincide; only the other man always seems to coincide first. ”

“ A banker either paying or collecting money on a cheque to which the person tendering it for payment or collection has no title or a defective title is prima facie liable to the true owner for conversion or money had and received, notwithstanding he acted in perfect good faith and derived no benefit from the operation. Payment of an open cheque, payable to bearer either originally or by endorsement, is, however, in all cases a good payment and discharge (Charles v. Blackwell, 2 C.P.D. at p. 158) . ”

“ I had now, for example, a banking account; and though I seldom risked drawing a cheque for more than two pounds without first performing quite an intricate little sum, the data for which were furnished by my cheque, pass and paying-in books respectively, still—I had a banking account. I had also good boots, two fairish suits of clothes (though no evening clothes) , an umbrella, a watch, and other possessions that, three or four years before, had seemed beyond dreams unattainable. ”

“ A customer who has a doubtful cheque in his possession, and who is anxious to know whether the drawer has funds to meet it, can instruct his banker to forward the cheque in question direct to the drawer’s bankers, with the request that they telegraph back whether or not the cheque is paid. ”

“ Well, money can't. What I wanted to say was that if, instead of having a large sum in the bank, you had overdrawn your account about as much as the bank would stand, would you be surprised if your cheque were not honored? ”

“ If a banker pays a cheque which is crossed generally otherwise than to a banker, or a cheque crossed specially otherwise than to the banker to whom it is crossed, he will be liable to the true owner of it for any loss he may have sustained in consequence. ”

“ I could have been paid in gold had I wished, but I had preferred a weekly cheque, and I took care never to cash this cheque at our own offices in Waterloo Place. I did not wish it to be known that I had no banking account. As a matter of fact, I now had one, though I should not have [Pg 10] liked to disclose it to the Income Tax Commissioners. The reason for this reticence lay in the smallness, not in the largeness, of my balance. I had learned that in certain circumstances it pays you to appear better off than you are. ”

“ Many bills of exchange are drawn at sight, as it is called, in which case the payee presents it for payment to the drawee, there is no acceptance and no discount, and a bill of this kind becomes the same as a cheque. ”

“ Therefore, he had drawn a cheque to the order of Edmund Gray for the sum of 720l.
Now, a man may be in very great practice indeed; but if, like Mr. Dering, he knows the details of every case that is brought into the House, he would certainly remember drawing a cheque for 720l., and the reason why it was drawn, and the person for whom it was drawn, especially if the cheque was only three weeks old. Seven hundred and twenty pounds! It is a sum in return for which many and very substantial services must be rendered. ”

“ He who steals a letter containing a cheque, intentionally steals the cheque also, if he hopes that the letter may contain one, even though he well knows that the odds against the existence of such a circumstance are very great. ”

“ On dishonour of a cheque paid in for collection, the banker is bound to give notice of dishonour. Being in the position of an agent, he may either give notice to his principal, the customer, or to the parties liable on the bill. The usual practice of bankers has always been to return the cheque to the customer, and sec. 49, subs. 6 of the Bills of Exchange Act is stated to have been passed to validate this custom. ”

“ The word “draft” has come to have a wider meaning, that of a bill drawn by one person on another for a sum of money, or an order (whether on a banker or other) to pay money. The employment of cheques as a method of payment offering greater convenience than coin is almost universal in Great Britain and the United States. Of the transactions through the banks of the United Kingdom between 86 and 90% are conducted by means of cheques, and an even higher proportion in the United States. ”

“ I had just cashed a cheque of my own at the rate of a hundred-and-five francs to the five pounds, and I felt robust and self-confident and ready to do it again. There, on the top of my "Suspense" basket, lay just the very cheque for the purpose. Charles, I fell again. Explaining to myself that Mr. Abrahams had clearly intimated that his gift to the Government was alternatively a note for a hundred francs or a cheque for five pounds, I put a note for a hundred francs into the "Suspense" basket, and pocketed the cheque, thus making another five francs profit. ”

“ Instructions or no instructions, I thought it was now time to send the note for a hundred francs to the Government. The Government said it had no use for francs in England, sent back the note to me and told me to buy, locally, an English cheque, which I was to hold, pending further instructions. It took some time to arrive at this point, and meanwhile rate of exchange had had a serious relapse. The hundred franc note bought a cheque for five guineas. Not feeling strong enough to pend further instructions, I at once sent this home. More haste, less speed: I forgot to endorse it. ”

“ People who have money to spare, or are able to borrow money from their bankers, and are attracted by the terms of the loan, sign an application form which is issued with the prospectus, and send a cheque for the sum, usually 5 per cent. ”

“ I contrived, by taking advantage of the carelessness of some of my superiors at the bank, to get possession of some blank cheque forms, which I filled up with small amounts—not more than two or three pounds—and signed with careful imitations of the signatures of some of our clients. Jezzard got some stamps made for stamping on the account numbers, and when this had been done I handed over to him the whole collection of forged cheques in settlement of my debts to all of my four companions. ”

“ It is presumed that a man can account for the possession of a cheque. It may be that a man should have a cheque in his possession and not be able to account for it, and should yet be open to no grave suspicion. ”

“ You’ve got your own little banking account, have you not?’
‘Yes, dad.’
‘That’s right. Never mix it up with your husband’s.’ He scribbled a cheque. ‘Pay that in! It is for five hundred pounds. I will sell half your debentures and charge you with brokerage. ”

“ That is to say, a man with a cheque, or a sum of money in his possession, hands it over to the publican, and calls for drinks for himself and his friends, until the publican tells him he has drunk out his cheque. ”

“ Besides, a man with a banking account doesn't draw a regular £24 every four weeks for personal expenses. He draws a cheque just when he wants a few pounds, instead of carrying five-pound notes about with him. I asked the bank manager about these cheques and he looked up a couple of them and found they had been cashed over the counter. So he called up the cashier and from him I learnt that Sir Horace came in and cashed them. ”

“ If the cheque is paid into a different bank, it will not be presented for payment, but liquidated by set-off against other cheques; and in a state of circumstances favourable to a general extension of banking credits, a banker who has granted more credit, and has therefore more cheques drawn on him, will also have more cheques on other bankers paid to him, and will only have to provide notes or cash for the payment of balances; for which purpose the ordinary reserve of prudent bankers, one-third of their liabilities, will abundantly suffice. ”

“ He might call her a creditor or by any other name if it did but imply that he granted her request. She enclosed a cheque for a thousand pounds, and determined to take the letter with her the next day when she went to see Rosamond. ”

“ I know a man in Luxembourg who will give two-thirds value on a cheque drawn on a sound account, and, in addition, provide the signature from any reasonable copy. It is never the first owners who lose with such things. ”

“ As it is usual, both in London and the provinces, to credit a customer’s account with cheques on the day that he pays them in, it follows that an employer, if his agent have indorsed crossed cheques without authority and placed them to an account in his own name, can recover their amount from his agent’s banker. ”

“ Everyday 4,000 to 5,000 of these authorisations to pay cheques are issued. Ladies write out these authorisations by means of type-writing machines: their fingers work the machine with astounding rapidity. According to the data given me each of them prints every day 400 to 500 assignments of payment to the persons designated and authorisations to the post-offices to pay; and the hours of work averaging seven, they write about one a minute.
Thirdly. (Postanweisungen.)
The cheque can be drawn in favour of a person living in Hungary or a foreign country. ”

“ Reply, granting the Loan.
18, Stanhope Gardens, January 11th, 187—
Dear Jones,
There is nothing so annoying as to be threatened with proceedings. Perhaps you have not replied civilly to your tradesman's demand for payment; generally speaking, if you do so, they are not pressing. I enclose you a cheque for 20l., and shall [45] be glad if you will dine with me this evening. Bring your I. O. U.
Yours ever,
Saml. Rogers.
Reply to a Gentleman who wishes to claim an Estate in Chancery. ”

“ XXIX Chapter XI. The Influence of Credit on Prices. BillB of exchange, telegraph drafts, bank-notes, and cheques may be regarded as instruments of credit — A bill of exchange is a written promise to pay a certain amount at a fixed date ”

“ The detail of the business is augmenting with an overwhelming rapidity. More cheques are drawn year by year; not only more absolutely, but more by each person, and more in proportion to his income. The payments in, and payments out of a common account are very much more numerous than they formerly were. ”

“ Thus if a customer draws two hundred cheques in a year and keeps an average balance of £200 his account is probably considered remunerative. Cheques may be drawn on the Bank of any amount however small,235 though there was, I believe, many years ago, a sort of understanding that customers should not draw cheques for an amount under five pounds. The Public Drawing Office, as its name implies, is devoted to the custody of the drawing accounts of the Government and various public companies and institutions. ”

“ The treasurer, like the chancellor a clerk, sat at the head of the right-hand side of the table. He charged the accountants with their fixed debts, and dictated the contents of the great roll of accounts (or pipe roll) which embodied the decisions of the court as to the indebtedness of the sheriffs and other accountants. These persons with certain subordinates constituted the court of accounts, or upper exchequer, whereas the lower exchequer, or exchequer of receipt, consisted almost exclusively of the subordinates of the treasurer and chamberlains. ”

“ From the 19th to the 26th, two forged cheques were presented, each for a sum under £20. They were paid. The total amount of the forged cheques reached £674.
"On the 26th, I desired you to send another letter, imperfectly fastened, to the bank manager, by your valet, stating that, pending certain arrangements you had in contemplation, you did not intend to draw any further cheques upon your account without due notice being given. From that day no forged cheques were presented for payment. ”

“ When money is paid into the exchequer for debts due, or on a loan to the government, the teller who receives it gives a bill for the amount, which is an exchequer bill, or a bill of credit; a substantial definition of which will be found in the 11th section of the 8 & 9 Wm. ”

“ If you were once nonsuited, and had all the costs to pay in an action-at-law, believe me, sir, the being non suited in a horse which had no action, would be greatly preferable to all the success of a case-at-law, though you were told at the time that you got off cheap, after paying £150. Look, sir, at that cheque:
"Please to pay to Messrs. ”