CHEQUE-BOOKS FOR WIVES.

Mataura Ensign, 13 May 1914, Page 7

CHEQUE-BOOKS FOR WIVES.

BANK MANAGER'S PLAINT. A suggestion that married women should haive tflieir own .banking aocounlts was severely frowned upon lately %• a London fctmk manager. "For gjoodneias' sake," he said, "idkMi't encourage till© idea. You can't ooiiiMCVB the amioiunt of trouble which man lied' worn em's accounts give us. We have a number ctf ttiham, of course, aoid I can only think cf three or four women among tlhem w'lio 'have iany sense of business ait all. '"llhe moat amiusOngf clie<nlt I ever had counrfaiined biterly when she was told! isJhe lid overdrawn her account. 'Why," £lho said, "I have Jtite of cheques left .in my cheque-book. How can it be overthrown?' That, I admit, was exceptional strapddity, (butt a great many come pretty near it. "y<ne casKo in .this miorninig with a cheque dirawn to her own order and endorsed. Slhe money for her weekly hills. Bit she bad actually 'cirossed' it, and when irt was pointed out to her that this maidie it payable only through a banker, die salid 'How funny! I never knew what those scraitidhes".meant before.' "

Another otorv is tihat a woman, w'lio hiad overdrawn her account proceeded to write out a tiheqiie to matke uip the deficit.

Cheques Not Like Money. | On the other hand, a West End' tradesman saidi hoi wished 1 all women hadi bank accounts, spinsters as well as wives. "It is fair easier to get our ao-j oounttiSi paid! regularly," he explained.! "A lady can't bear paying money for; what she has had. She would far rather spend: it on something eihe wants. (She doesn't minid paying by cheque That dbesn't seem to her tto be money at all. I find the greatest difference between women customers who bank and" those who have so much a 1 week for housekeeping. The former | pay like clockwork; the latter only pay every now and! then." j A woman of large property who was laitely left a widbw has provided each of her daughters with a 'banking account and is teaching them to look after tiheir money tlhem selves. "If oniify I had! beem Ihrought up in this way!" she says. "My troubles when I married wetre really agonising. My husband could not understand my ignorance or keep patience witih my filiowniess. For years I suffered.. My girls shall not have that ordeal to go through."