Teller

“ In the first place, the same man handles the money and its written representations, the accounts. When we reach the stage of having both a teller and a bookkeeper, the one is a check on the other, because of a difference in point of view. I do not understand that a bank considers its bookkeepers more honest than its tellers or vice versa. The bookkeeper came along to check the teller, not because of such marked variations in humanity, but because of the volume of business. There was more than one man could do. ”

“ The paying teller has to accustom himself to the peculiarities of the signature of every patron of the bank, and has to be constantly on the lookout for forgeries; for if he pays a forgery, the bank must stand the loss. ”

“ This innocent looking piece of fluff was caught slipping a five-dollar bill to a teller at a bank down town, and asking for change for a hundred dollar bill. She says it was nothing more than sleight of hand. You are an experienced observer. I want you to watch her work her little trick. If she can fool us, and not use Psi, the legal position is that she didn't need Psi to fool the teller. ”

“ The very next day a person, whom the Teller at once recognised to be the same individual, although completely altered in dress, being now muffled up in a cloak, and wearing green spectacles, and having a fur cap drawn much over his face, called at the Commercial Bank, and presented to the next Teller a £50 Bank of England note, to be exchanged in Commercial Bank notes, who, according to custom, requested the person to write his name and address on the back. ”

“ Let the receiving-teller of a bank be called upon to explain how it is that he knows at a glance a counterfeit bill from a genuine one, and in nine cases out of ten he will succeed no better than the cloth merchant did. ”

“ Of this number, those employed in handling money are divided into two forces, under the direction, respectively, of the receiving teller and the assorting teller. The business of the former force is to receive the shipments coming from the various banks and sub-treasuries for redemption, count the money, and report the amounts for return remittances; that of the latter force is to assort the notes and prepare them for delivery to the Comptroller of the Currency for destruction or to the banks for reissue. ”

“ For instance, a fortune-teller may inform you, having pocketed your two guineas, that a rich uncle in Australia is going to leave you a million pounds next year. She doesn’t promise you the million pounds herself; obviously that is coming to you anyhow, fortune-teller or no fortune-teller. ”

“ I made a mess of my work that morning I know—was fined two dollars at the clearing for a wrong subtraction; forgot to call for a couple of drafts I had left at Shan's—the liquor dealer—the day before; mislaid a registered letter; and entered Boston remittances in the New York book. My thoughts while out of the bank were on John, and while in the bank my eyes were on no one else.
Indeed, there was a fascination in watching the little teller work. He never made more mistakes, perhaps, in his life; but he detected every one of them instantly. ”

“ This is problematical, but certainly a skillful bank-teller can hardly be deceived by the forgery of a name of a well-known depositor.
A banker and business man should accustom himself to scrutinize closely the signatures of those with whom he deals. He should cut off their names from the backs of checks and notes, and paste then in alphabetical order in an autograph book devoted to that purpose, and compare any suspicious signature with the genuine one. ”

“ My services were so satisfactory that when our paying teller was promoted to a higher place in another institution, I was advanced to his situation with a salary of eighteen hundred dollars, and a promise of an additional two hundred if I proved to be competent to discharge the duties of the office. My uncle and others were my bondsmen. Never did a young man look forward to a brighter future than I did. ”

“ Another society woman in New York presented a check for payment at the bank, and the teller told her that it was not signed. Oh, do they have to be signed? she replied. What an awful lot of red tape there is about a banking business.
I know of a lady whose husband made a deposit for her in a bank and gave her a check book so that she could pay her bills without annoying him. One day she received a notice from the bank that her account was overdrawn. She went to the bank and told the teller that there must be some mistake about it, because she still had a lot of checks left in her book. ”

“ After the appointment of Philip H. Minor, in September 1817, to be Cashier of the bank; and the order of the Board, on the same day, relative to the whole duties of the bank being performed by the then officers of the bank; no renewal of the appointment of teller was made, and he usually performed the duties of Cashier and teller. ”

“ The friend completes his work, puts away his books, and figures up the amount needed. The borrower has a small balance to his credit, and he gives a note for the difference. Then the teller opens the safe, brings out a roll of bills, and begins to count out the amount. The safe door is left open, and the visitor sees within the piles of bank-notes and the rouleaux of gold. A fortune in cash is within his grasp with only a human life standing in his way ”

“ He must get [Pg 328] the check cashed at once, buy an outfit and secure his steamship passage.
After some difficulty he found the Chemical Bank, opposite the Post-Office. It was a splendid building with a lofty dome of stained glass, reminding him of a church. Making his way to the paying-teller's window, he handed in the check. The teller, a gaunt, keen-eyed man with spectacles, looked first at the check and then at Armitage. ”

“ The storekeeper's; two bank-teller's; and one other. We're running through the card files now. At any rate, Walter, you're it. Track this thing down and clean it up. Heaven alone knows who's tinkering with coins this way, but we'll have to find out. ”

“ The money of a group accumulated from day to day in the vault is in the morning transported to the assorting room, where it is delivered to the second assortment teller. By him the bundles are opened, the inventory verified, and the packages separated by denominations, reference being had in this process to the upper note of each package. The packages of each denomination are then strapped together by means of cardboards and rubber bands, and the group number, the denomination, and the amount marked upon each bundle. Next morning the money is delivered in this shape to the second assorters. ”

“ You had better go to the fortune-teller, if there be such a person in the place; he may know about him as well as other stray goods.
FLOUNCE.
No, no! I hates fortune-tellers; they have told me so many lies already.——Good morning, gentlemen, I ax your pardon.—I have been very rude ”

“ A neat card had been posted to prominent banking houses in the city and to country bankers round about, so that every man present was intensely interested in the performance. There were bank managers, cashiers, paying tellers and clerks, all waiting eagerly for the show to begin.
In the front row of chairs there were three men who were not bankers: a detective, a burglar, and a struggling author, who sees the inside of a bank only once in a great while, when he goes in to cash a cheque that comes to him from some one of the magazines. ”

“ It is possible for a person fortified with such basic knowledge to acquire worth-while experience in the higher branches of banking much faster and to perform his own work better than without such well-organized knowledge. ... No attempt has been made to describe those phases of practical banking which, as a rule, can be mastered only by actual experience.” (Preface) The book has chapters on: Organization and administration; Bank accounting; The receiving teller; The note teller; The transit department ”

“ To accommodate matters, however, and that the poor woman should not be weeping daily and indefinitely on the maddened teller's window, an intermediary money-lender was found, who, having vainly sought to induce the bank to render itself responsible, then Mrs. ”

“ Now the law says that banks shall keep open during certain hours on every business day, which is not a legal holiday. After the closing hour there is a tremendous amount of work to be done. The tellers must balance their cash; the bookkeepers must take off a balance of every account on their particular set of books; and every check and draft deposited, or received through the mails, and payable in other towns, must be listed and forwarded for collection. ”

“ The clerk makes a journey from one end of the line to the other, depositing, as he goes along, a parcel of money packed up with the wages-list. These parcels are received from the hands of the clerk by some one who is always on the lookout at each place of deposit, with that eagerness or care men usually betray when they expect to obtain the reward of their industry. The arrival of the cash-bearer is always either known by fixed arrangement or by a special telegram which is sent down the line. ”

“ Tellson's Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger—with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt—nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. ”

“ Words break no bones, unless they cause the recipient to fling the dealer in them down a steep stairway. The automobile is waiting for you at the door. The chauffeur thinks the metal under the seat is copper. Your banker will tell you it is gold, so keep an eye on it till it is safely in his possession. There, there, do not thank me, I beg of you. I assure you I am not seeking for gratitude, but I, am a little short of time to-day. In half an hour I am to meet the governor of the Bank of England, so I must bid you farewell. ”

“ If I could so favorably impress an intimate friend at a time when I was elated, it is not surprising that I should subsequently hold an interview with a comparative stranger—the cashier of a local bank—without betraying my state of mind. As business interviews go, this was in a class by itself. While my attendant stood guard at the door, I, an enrolled inmate of a hospital for the insane, entered the banking room and talked with a level-headed banker. ”

“ He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note of all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and fleshy features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a good deal disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly agitated from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his hands. ”

“ And he went into the store, not to be a gentleman clerk to sit in the counting-house and copy letters and invoices, and do the bank business and [53] lounge about in fine clothing, but he went to do anything that came to hand, rough and smooth, hard and easy, dirty and clean, for in those days the duties of a junior clerk differed from those of a porter only in this, that the young clerk’s work was not so heavy as the robust porter’s. And even when he grew older and stronger he would go down into the hold of a vessel and vie with the strong stevedore in the shifting and placing of cargoes. ”

“ Anglo-Saxon writings frequently speak of money as given by weight. Our cut No. 53 is a representation of the merchant, or the toll-taker, seated before his account book, with his scales hanging to the desk. In the first of these cuts, a man holds the bag or purse, in which the money received for toll or merchandise is deposited. The cut No. 54 represents the receiver pouring the money out of his bag into the cyst, or chest, in which it is to be locked up and kept in his treasury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here the bundles are distributed among a force of women, who recount all the notes for the purpose of verifying the amount, the description, and the assortment. If, among the notes of a bank, is found one of another, the estray is exchanged, through the superintendent of assorters, for a note of the proper description. The prover, having ascertained that her money is correct according to the accompanying label, puts her initials to the latter, as well as upon each package of notes, wraps and ties the bundle, and carries it to a table, where, in her presence, the knots are sealed. ”

“ A banker is fond of telling the story of an old fellow who came into his bank one day in a suit of black so old that it had taken on a sickly greenish tinge. He fell into the hands of a polite clerk who answered all his questions—and there were a great many of them—clearly, patiently, and courteously. ”

“ In this respect, a banker s note, circulating as money, is just like any other man s note that is locked up in the desk or safe of the holder. The fact that it is bought and sold from hand to hand as money- that is, in exchange for other property-makes no change whatever in the character or value of the note. ”