forgeries and falsities
upon him: whatever he omits they catch at, and leave it out; whatever
they put upon him, he is bound to yield to; so that, in short, as books
well kept are the security of the tradesman's estate, and the
ascertaining of his debts, so books ill kept will assist every knavish
customer or chapman to cheat and deceive him.

Some men keep a due and exact entry or journal of all they sell, or
perhaps of all they buy or sell, but are utterly remiss in posting it
forward to a ledger; that is to say, to another book, where every parcel
is carried to the debtor's particular account. Likewise they keep
another book, where they enter all the money they receive, but, as
above, never keeping any account for the man; there it stands in the
cash-book, and both these books must be ransacked over for the
particulars, as well of goods sold, as of the money received, when this
customer comes to have his account made up; and as the goods are
certainly entered when sold or sent away, and the money is certainly
entered when it is received, this they think is sufficient, and all the
rest superfluous.

I doubt not such tradesmen often suffer as much by their slothfulness
and neglect of book-keeping, as might, especially if their business is
considerable, pay for a book-keeper; for what is such a man's case,
when his customer, suppose a country dealer, comes to town, which
perhaps he does once a-year (as in the custom of other tradesmen), and
desires to have his account made up? The London tradesman goes to his
books, and first he rummages his day-book back for the whole year, and
takes out the foot[32] of all the parcels sent to his chapman, and they
make the debtor side of the account; then he takes his cash-book, if it
deserves that name, and there he takes out all the sums of money which
the chapman has sent up, or bills which he has received, and these make
the creditor side of the account; and so the balance is drawn out, and
this man thinks himself a mighty good accountant, that he keeps his
books exactly; and so perhaps he does, as far as he keeps them at all;
that is to say, he never sends a parcel away to his customer, but he
enters it down, and never receives a bill from him, but he sets it down
when the money is paid; but now take this man and his chap, together, as
they are making up this account. The chapman, a sharp clever tradesman,
though a countryman, has his pocket-book with him, and in it a copy of