The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1911-02-04
A CHASE AFTER TWO CENTS.
small Amount Lost Causes Much
Trouble. But Is Found After Long
Search.

for sending in his report to the pro
per State official, one of the county
officials found his books out of bal
ance with another county official with
whom they should balance, if they had
made no mistake in their book-keep-
ing.
Both officials went over their books
very carefully, but the error was still
there undiscovered. What made the
matter worse was that the error was
only two cents, which, in itself, did
not amount to anything material, but
did make a difference in the book
keeping. Again and again were the
books compared and gone over, and
still the error was there; a difference
of two cents kept the books from
making the desired balance. Nothing
was found wrong and at last, after
both Of the officials had spent much
Of their own and the county's time
searching for the missing funds, it
| was decided to mark the difference to
undiscovered error and pass the re-
port on up to the State official.
About six months later a third
county official was comparing his
books with one Of the other officials
and he found that they lacked two
cents of balancing. This time it was
decided to thresh the matter out for
good and all and to find the error il
1t were possible to find it by hard and
diligent search, SO after they had gone
over the books couple Of times
without results tending to straighten
out the error. they called in the third
official and asked him to join in the
search for the evasive brownies"
He was quite willing to comply aud
vindicate his former bookkeeping rec
ord, but the three Of them went over
the books with no better satisfaction
than did the first two. Finally the
first two officials gave up the search
and the official whom they had called
in to help them got the son of one
of these officials to 60 over the books
with him. They had finished the first
mage and were turning over to the
/ second page when there righ; before
their eyes was t1e error that had
caused 90 much loss Of time and So
much worry . tie officials. In car
| rying the amount forward it had been
| changed from forty-two to forty-four
cents and all this time it had re-
mained there undiscovered. and a
| thorn in the flesh Of the officials. SO
to speak.
The same thing has happened re-
Gently in the office of the county su-
perintendent Of education. In straight
ening up the affairs of the Office be-
| fore it passed from the retiring su-
perlntendent to the incoming one and
| in getting the books Of the office bal
| anced with the treasurer's office. it
was found that there was a difference
| OF S1.SO which could not be traced.
The new superintendent was anx-
| ious to get the error corrected before
he took charge Of the AoolIs, while the
old superintendent was equally anX-
| ious to get the books to balance be-
fore he turned them over to the in
coming official. AS it was they went
over che books and compared the
| checks given out with the check
stubs in the check book, but nowhere
was the error found. 1t seems
a case like the other one. The mat
ter will be closed up for the present.
| probably to be heard from again in
the future, but until then it is Simply
one of those uneXplainahle mistakes
| that happen to the best Of account
ants sometimes during the course Of
! their work