The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-04 00:00:00

" The duties and responsibility of a banker's clerk are
very imperfectly understood by the public ; and though
our readers generally will not require to have the parti-
culars of the occupation minutely specified, yet we may
usefully remind them of some of the' peculiar burdens'
that are necessarily borne by bankers' clerks. Of these,
of course, the chief is their personal responsibility for
any loss that may be occasioned by their neglect or error,
or by the fraud of a forger or a swindler, who can impose
upon them. A person brings a cheque to the teller in a
bank, and demands cash for it. The signature appears
to be that of a highly respectable customer of the house,
and the teller accordingly pays the amount. On in-
quiry it turns out that the signature is a forgery, and the
public supposes that the Bank ,must bear the loss. But
this is a mistake. The unfortunate clerk who has paid
the cheque must provide the amount, or if he does not do
so, his securities will be called upon, and be obliged to
pay it. In the same way, if; through a mistake of a book-
keeper or accountant, a wrong sum is placed to the
credit of a party, and the bank sustains ultimately a loss,
this falls on the bookkeeper or accountant, and he must
pay for bis mistake. The position of a banker's clerk is,
therefore, very different from that of a merchant's or a
solicitor's clerk ; and it places him in the condition of a
confidential assistant to his employer. In fact, he is called
upon to perform duties which, in other occupations, are
executed by principals alone.
" Such services being required from the officers in
a bank—and all are more or less exposed to loss from
negligence or error—the scale of remuneration ought to
be proportioned to the kind of services required. It is
obviously unfair to determine the salary of a man who
is every day exposed to the risk of heavy losses, by the
same standard which determines the salary of an artisan
or a mechanical workman in any department Of trade.
Nor is it just that a person in the high situation of a
banker should refuse to give his clerk a salary propor-
tioned to his services, and the appearance in society he is
required to maintain, because, from the great number of
clerks seeking employment, the same services can be ob-
tained at a reduced and improper scale of remuneration.
A banker who acts on this principle does not act pru-
dently; for he should bear in mind that his clerk is a
confidential officer, that as such will have frequent op-
apnodrtuvenriy otiesftoefn impossible,actingdishonetsotly
dishonestly,
detectwhen
a and punish
it
will
b be
difficultof-
fence
; and that if he does not place his clerk above the
temptation to act in this manner, by giving him a
salary proportioned to his deserts, he is endangering his
own interest to a greater extent than he is benefiting it
by the saving of a few pounds per annum."
This argument is carried out much further in this
paper, which we hope may have some influence in
bringing about a better state of things. Mr. Samuel
Jones Lloyd is the third of the series of " Currency
Portraits." This gentleman's opinions on the currency
question are well known, and they are here recapitu-
lated. The nature of the other papers may be
gathered from their titles. They are on " Bankers'
advances on Railway Shares ;" on " Savings' Banks;"
and on " Banking and Commercial Law ;—the Law
of Cheques," with a large addition of miscellaneous
matter.

THE RAILWAY REGISTER.
This periodical is devoted entirely to railways and
railway questions. It contains an immense mass of
information which, at all times valuable, is doubly so
at the present moment, when the extension of old
lines, or the formation of new ones, is occupying so
much attention both in Parliament and out of it.

POLYTECHNIC REVIEW.
The article on " Projectile Weapons of War and Ex-
plosive Compounds," has now extended to some length,
but has lost none of its value ; it displays a knowledge
of the subject treated of, and extensive reading on it.
A large part of the present paper is given exclusively
to a description of those formidable missiles, Congreve
Rockets. The notice of Mr. Ilaydon's "Lectures on
Painting" is not particularly favourable to that artist;
it scarcely does justice to him and his zeal for the
improvement of English art. We remember reading
his volume with much pleasure. The contents of
this periodical this month are varied, and seem well
selected, but are too numerous to go over in detail.