Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1901-12-30

companies paying over 600 back
into the state within few days after
the terrible fire.
OF course am insurance journal is in
terested in making out as good case
for the insurance companies as possible,
but 1t Is true that there is a great deal
Of unwarrante,d public prejudice against
fire insurance companies in general and
their special journal can not be blamed
for presenting to the public the compa-
MES side of the controversy AS gem
eral proposition the fire insurance bust
ness is not as profitable as the life in
surance business and will not compare
favorably with many other lines OF le-
climate enterprise such as wholesaling
and manufacturing. In Iowa competi-
ton Is very severe, with the result that
rates are reasonably low and insurance
profits correspondingly modest. How
ever, Iowa's insurance legislation has
always been very fair and the record Of
failures is comparatively small.
-------------------------
PRIMITIVE BANKING METHODS OF EUROPE
In the January scribner's Frank A.
Vanderlip writes of some of the banking
methods in vogue in Europe, and in the
course of his article says:
A bank check is looked upon with sus-
picion in Itlly. Practically no small
tradesmen woald take check. and none
Of them keep bank account. 1t was
still more surprising to me to find that
such statement would be almost liter
ally true of Paris itself. was study
ing the mechanism of the Bank OF
France under the guidance Of one of the
officers. We went into one great room
in the old building in which there were
200 desks enclosed in wire cages, all
empty at the moment. asked what
these were for.
These cages are for our city collec-
tors was told. When a small mer-
chant borrows from the Bank of France,
he does not, lis with you III America,
borrow a bank credit, and have his loan
merely added to his balance on the
books of the bank. With US the mer-
chant, when he makes a loan, gets the
ectual money and takes it away. He
probably has no bank account with us.
He writes no checks. When the loan is
due he does not, as would be the case In
your banks, come in and pay his in
debtedness with check; instead OF that
we send a collector to him. and that coll
lector liz repaid the loan In actual cur
rency. Two hundred men start out from
the Bank OF France every morning to
collect matuIed loans Several days
each month 1t is necessary to send out
400 men, and on the first and the 18th
OF each month 600 collectors go out"
These collectors were uniformed men
carrying leather pouches In which they
have the matilred notes and which are
later filed with currency as the collec-
lions are made from the banks borrow
ers.
/ stood ali the paying teller's desk as
I went farther along in my tour OF the
Bank of France. AS I halted there the
man who happened to be at the window
at the moment presented me a check for
$4,000 francs. The money was counted
cut and handed over to him, stored
away In big wallet, and he passed on.
I asked IL 1t were not unusual for a man
to draw out 50 much currency, and was
told that it was not. 1t was but anotll-
er illustration Of how undeveloped is the
banking system of continental Europe
In it's uses by the general public.