Living London; its work and its play, its humour and and its pathos, its sights and its scenes; . outof Lombard Street. This is the famousBankers Clearing House, the agency throughwhich bankers collect the money representedby cheques and bills paid to them. Insteadof presenting the cheques at each bankinghouse, bankers settle the whole amountdelivered during the da)- at the ClearingHouse, receiving or pa\ing the difference, asthe case may be, by a single cheque on theBank of England. Obviously the alternativeto this system would be an interminableround of petty transactions. The annualbusiness
Living London; its work and its play, its humour and and its pathos, its sights and its scenes; . outof Lombard Street. This is the famousBankers Clearing House, the agency throughwhich bankers collect the money representedby cheques and bills paid to them. Insteadof presenting the cheques at each bankinghouse, bankers settle the whole amountdelivered during the da)- at the ClearingHouse, receiving or pa\ing the difference, asthe case may be, by a single cheque on theBank of England. Obviously the alternativeto this system would be an interminableround of petty transactions. The annualbusiness at the Clearing House amounts toabout ten thousand million pounds sterling,and it increases every year. In one day theamount cleared is often over ;^ 100,000,000. The scene is remarkable. A stream of walk clerks is continualh arriving, eachman carrying a portfolio which in most casesis securely chained to him. As each arriveshe hurries to one of the desks and gets theamount of his load credited. Subsequentlythe cheques and bills are entered against the\arious banks on which the\- are IN THE LONDON CITY AND MIDLAND BANK ( HILL .M()m:v loxdox. 91 This applies to Lmidon banks, fur whichthere arc two clearings clail_\-, niorniuL; andafternoon. The countr_\-clearing, some ofw hich is collected b_\- post, is at noon. The walk clerk has a double journey tomake, that from his bank to the ClearingHouse, and the return journe_\-. In the lattercase his portfolio may contain a big draft onthe Bank of England. It will also containthe returns—that is, those cheques or billswhich are returned from the clearing unpaid,cither from want of funds, irrcgularit} ofendorsement, or from an_\- other a forgery is detected, in whichcase the word forgery is written across inred, and the offending paper sent back forinquir_\- ; its final destin_\- in most casesis Scotland Yard. There is nothing in the interior of theClearing House to suggest the importanceof its work
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1902
