More remarkable still was the fact that he recognized with equal facility the signatures of those customers whose checks only came in once or twice a year.  But he made an art of his work, and I afterward discovered that most of his evenings were spent in studying and learning the signatures of the customers, for he was a wonderful hand at copying writing, and whenever a new signature would come in, one with which he was not acquainted, he would at once facsimile it in his pocket-book, and by the next morning would be able to recognize it among 10,000.

Signature clerks are not, as a rule, supposed to 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 bad mark against them in the future, and they feel its effects next time promotions or “rises” are being handed out.