At present, however, some banks prefer to have the drafts numbered sequentially, put up in pads of 50 or 100 each, and to use, in connection with this, a book printed in the following form, in which to enter the necessary data instead of in the stub:

DRAFTS ON CITIZENS' NATIONAL BANK, JONESVILLE, OHIO.

The advantages of such a record are that it is much more compact than a book with stubs and is much more convenient for making up an account current for the correspondent bank on which the drafts are drawn, or for comparing an account received from such a bank.

STOCK LEDGER.

When all the capital stock of a bank has been paid in, and the stock certificates issued to the shareholders, the record of such certificates and all future transfers of same should be recorded in a book called the "stock ledger," which, when properly posted, will show in a separate account for each shareholder the exact number of shares issued to him and standing in his name. The data for the entries in this ledger

should be taken from the "stub" of every certificate of stock issued from the "stock certificate book." Before any certificate is issued, entries should be made on this stub to show its number, the date of issue, the number of shares, the name of the shareholder, and his receipt for the certificate; and when it represents a transfer of stock the stub should also show the number of the old certificate replaced by the new, the name of the shareholder who owned it, and the number of shares represented by it. From these data entries should be made in the stock ledger in the following manner:

These entries mean that John Jones, as one of the original shareholders of the bank, on February 1 paid $1,000 for 10 shares, for which stock certificate No. 1 was issued to him, and that on February 10 he surrendered certificate No. 1 for transfer on the books of the bank, in the place of which the bank issued two certificates, one, No. 49, for 5 shares in his own name, and the other, No. 50, for 5 shares in the name of Robert Smith, to whom they had been sold by Jones. The figures entered in the column headed "Amount" should always represent the par value of the stock.

The aggregate of the number of shares standing to the credit of each shareholder, and the par value or "amount" of same, should always be equal to the total number of shares issued and the total capital stock of the bank, and the correctness of the entries in this ledger should be tested by balancing the accounts in it once a month, unless no transfers have been made during this period.

GENERAL BOOKKEEPER'S WORK.

This should be entrusted to a reliable and competent accountant, for it is on the "general ledger" of a bank that its business should be simply and faithfully recorded, and this is the common centre to which the condensed results of all transactions on auxiliary books should converge. The business of a commercial or National bank is usually embraced within the following "general" accounts, showing its resources and liabilities, which, if the books are correctly kept, should always balance each other in amount: