make copies of
customers' autographs, but many of them do, and some men are clever
enough at the work to even deceive themselves.

Of course, it is understood that when the signature clerks are not
examining checks they are studying the autograph books in order to
familiarize themselves with the calligraphy of every customer. Each
check, you must understand, passes through the hands of each clerk in
turn, so that if one should pass a forgery or a "raised" draft it is
very unlikely that the entire staff would do so. All these checks, of
course, come through the clearing house, and if we should pass a
forged draft and not find out our mistake before three o 'clock in the
afternoon our bank would be held responsible. One of the commonest
dodges adopted by the modern check-forger is to get a customer of some
small country bank to introduce him to that institution as a likely
depositor. On the recommendation of the friend (who is probably quite
unaware that the acquaintance he made some few months ago is a
"wrong'un") there is no difficulty in accepting their new client's
check for L2000, and the following day, when the same customer calls
and withdraws L100 to L500, as the case may be, he is politely handed
the cash, and then, of course, loses no time in skipping the town.
After the bogus customer's check has passed through the clearing house
it is returned to the bank on which it has been drawn and the fraud is
at once discovered.

Another part of a signature clerk's duties is to see that no checks
are post-dated, as of course no drafts must be paid until they fall
due. On occasions a careless man will post-date a check, but as a rule
the mistake is purposely made. This spotting of post-dated checks,
however, is the easiest part of a signature clerk's work, and it is
very seldom that a check so dated escapes him. Then, again, we are
often notified that payment on certain checks has been stopped, and
the clerks have to be on the lookout for these, and it must be a very
careless staff indeed that lets them slip by. We are held responsible
for all checks passed after we have received notice to stop payment.

But it is very seldom now, owing to the cleverness of the experts,
that any forged checks, "raised" checks, post-dated checks, or stopped
checks pass the vigilant eyes of our staff without being detected, but
when one does--well, although the signature clerks are not held
monetarily responsible for the loss, it means a