THE BANK CHEQUE COUNTER.- • FOIL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9921, 5 February 1894, Page 4

THE BANK CHEQUE COUNTERFOIL.

Each banking cheque, it will be seen, has a counter-foil, and this portion remains in tbe customer's possession, enabling him to detect any forged cheque by the simple process of fitting the edges of the one into the other, and ascertaining that they agree. In a rude age this was very much relied on as a safeguard. When Algiers was a nest of pirates, and its rovers plundered the commerce of Europe, protection passes, as they were termed, used to be sold to the captains of merchant vessels, the production of which enabled the latter to go free if challenged by the Algerine galleys. As the piratical commanders, however, could not always read, they were furnished with a set of counterfoils held by the pirate. Cheques should always be drawn on the forms supplied by the bank. — " On the Bank's Threshold," by W. Hai^h Miller.

PROFESSOR PROCTOR'S NE-

GLECTED GRAVE.

In one of the obscure plots in Greenwood Cemetery lie the remains of that gifted scientist, Richard A. Proctor, the astronomer, says the " New York Mail and Express." He died of yellow fever, and his body >vns in consequence indecently hurried into the ground. There were no friends to drop a tear on his coffin. The only persons present were the undertaker and his men. The grave was quickly closed up, nnd to-day it is in a disgraceful condition. It is covered by a tangle of weeds and bits of old refuse that tbe high winds have scattered. No loving band has planted a rosebud there, and the great man's last restingplace is sadly neglected. His widdwand family have had a hard time of it since his death. The deceased left no fortune, and Mrs. Proctor was forced to battle for bread for" herself and little ones. She tried many things, but without much success.- Fortune refused to smile on her. Finally she went on the lecture platform and delivered some of her husband's famous lectures in the hope that she might make enough money to feed and clothe her children, and have her husband's remains taken back to his boyhood home in England. But in this she failed also, and in the meantime the grave is covered with debris, and there is no stone to mark the spot. j