merchant or tradesman in each town, requires a vast num. ber of employees scattered all over the country, and this each of the larger agencies has.

Should information furnished by an agency, except where obtained from the injured person, be injurious to the credit of a person, and such information be proven to be false, the courts have held that he has a cause of action against the agency for the damage he has sustained through the injury thereby done to his credit. Or should credit be extended on the strength of information given by a commercial agency, which information was clearly inaccurate, and the agent of such agency could easily have discovered it to be inaccurate, the agency can be held for the damage thereby suffered.

CHAPTER XIV.

Transmission and Remittance of Money-Money Orders-Cheque BanksCommercial Bills-Cable and Telegraph Transfers.

Transmission and Remittance of Money.

PERHAPS the greatest achievement of modern business and banking is the safety and celerity with which money can be transmitted from person to person and from place to place, although, owing to the high state of development of the financial systems of the world, the actual shipment of money has been minimized to an extent that but few of us realize.

While a great many transactions that once required the shipment of money are now adjusted by bills of exchange, yet there is still, especially in domestic transactions involving small amounts, a necessity for the sending of the money itself; and the certainty with which a dollar or a hundred million dollars may be transported has probably done more than anything else to steady and regulate the finances of the world. In this certainty and quickness of shipment the steam-engine and the telegraph have been the most potent factors, the telegraph putting the whole financial world in instant communication, the steamengine, with greater certainty than has ever before been attained by human ingenuity, delivering the merchandise of which the telegraph gave notice.

The ability of London, New York, Paris, or Berlin, or, in fact, any other city to call upon other cities and coun

tries of the world for aid, and their power to instantly extend a similar accommodation, has been one of the most important developments of modern progress, making the financial transactions of the most widely separated countries almost as easy and certain of adjustment and settlement as the transactions had between two bankers located in the same city. One result of this rapidity and security of transmission is that the cities or countries which have large amounts of money seeking investment instantly come to the aid of the countries in need of financial assistance, the first desiring to buy and the second to sell or borrow.

The issue of credits, exchange, is so intimately connected with the actual shipment of money as to render a separation of the two here undesirable. Nor is such separation at all necessary, as exchange has already been treated, and only reference will be made to that part of the transmission of money which is accomplished, or rather the actual shipment avoided thereby.

First, as to actual shipment of money, by which is meant the shipment from one point to another of the money itself. This is done by the various steamship, transportation, and express companies in the same way that they carry other commodities, only greater safeguards are used to insure the safety of the money while in transit.

1. By registered letter. This is a letter containing the money to be remitted, and is registered and receipted for at the post-office. The receiver of such letter must receipt for the same upon delivery.

2. By express companies, who carefully count the amount of money to be sent, place the same in an envelope, and securely seal the envelope with sealing-wax in the presence of the person remitting. The envelope is then sent to the person to whom addressed, who, upon delivery, must receipt for the same.

The fact that express companies are known to be the

carriers of large sums of money, and that those sums are always in a particular car, leads to various train robberies, usually at those seasons of the year when great amounts are remitted from the Eastern money centres to the West. It would seem to be safer to send money in ordinary freight cars, where the location of the particular car, and the box or bundle containing it, which need not be even disclosed to the trainmen or conductor, would render its transit much more secure than the present method, although, of course, the objection would be that this would consume too much time, and the money would be earning no interest during its transit.

Payments are most frequently made, not by the shipment of money, but by a transfer of credits. This has been already dwelt upon at considerable length, and the various ways in which credits are transferred will therefore only be enumerated here, and reference made to the pages of this book setting forth the same more in detail.

1. By post-office order, commonly called money orders, which are divided into domestic and international money orders.

"The maximum amount for which a single money order may be issued at an office designated as a 'money order office' is $100, and at an office designated as a 'limited money order office,' $5. When a larger sum is to be sent, additional orders must be obtained. But postmasters are instructed to refuse to issue in one day to the same remitter, and in favor of the same payee, on any one post-office of the fourth class, money orders amounting in the aggregate to more than $300, as such office might not have funds sufficient for immediate payment of any large amount. Fractions of a cent are not to be introduced."

The remitter who desires to relieve the payee or his indorsee or attorney from the inconvenience of proving identity at the office of payment, by the testimony of another person, may do so, at his own risk, which waiver is stamped on the order.

"In the application the given names of the remitter and payee, or the initials thereof, should precede their surnames, respectively. If the payee has only one given name, it should be written in full, if known to the remitter. For example, the name John Jones should be so written, and not as J. Jones. Observance of this rule will tend to prevent mistakes and delay in payment."

"A money order must not be made payable to more than one person or firm."

"Names of firms, places, and streets, as well as amounts, should be written in full and in the plainest manner possible. As in many cases there are several post-offices of the same name in different States, the applicant should be very careful to write legibly the name of the State in which the office he means is located."

The payee named in the order may endorse it to another, but more than one endorsement is prohibited.

These orders should be collected within a year from the date of issue, to collect after which time it is necessary to apply for a duplicate and again pay the amount of the original fee.

INTERNATIONAL MONEY ORDERS.

What has been said in regard to domestic money orders applies, except as below stated: