Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1884 — COMPLIMENTS AND COUNTERFEITS. [ARTICLE]

COMPLIMENTS AND COUNTERFEITS.

Trick* of Customer* to Cheat Lady Cash* iera in City Restaurants, “I don’t mind the smirks, and quips, and quiddities, and attempts at familiarity of the customers who come in here,” the lady cashier of a down-town restaurant said. “It is part of the business of a woman who accepts such a position to endure very many things that would shock many sensitive persons. In a short time one can get used to such things and simply not notice them. But it is a constant trial and a perpetual annoyance to be compelled tote on the lookout for all sorts of tricks and devices by which many persons seek to cheat the proprietor. It is difficult enough to look after those who try to slip out without paying, those who are in collusion with the waiter, those who eat a dollar’s worth at one table and ten eents’ worth at another and try to get out by paying the ten-cent check. That sort of cheating is easily detected. “But the most difficult thing to do is to escape taking bad money. It seems as if all the men who have bad money to pass try to pass it on lady cashiers. They seem to think we don’t know bad money when we see it. They will hand out a regular old-time counterfeit note and try to distract our attention with a joke or a compliment The game of deceiving lady cashiers with that sort of thing is very transparent I have got so used to it that when a man pays me a compliment now I always take a second look to see whether he is not giving me bad money. The other day a dude came in here with one of the new counterfeit silver certificates. I had read about it in a newspaper, and a policeman had just called at the door to warn us not to take them. The dude ate a hearty meal. His check was 80 cents and he wanted a quarter’s worth of cigars. He threw out one of the counterfeit silver certificates, saying as he stepped to the cigar case: “ ‘Two for a quarter, please.’ “I saw at a glance that the note was bad. I did not like to offend him by refusing it at once, so I took it up to inspect it. “ ‘Eighty cents and twenty-five,’ he said, carelessly. “ ‘Excuse me,’ I remarked, ‘but this note has a strange look to me.’ “ ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he said; ‘it’s one of the new issue. Your hair looks very neat this morning.’ “ ‘Yes, ’ I said. ‘Could you not give me another note?’

“ ‘Beally,’ he said, ‘I would not have troubled you, but I wanted the change for car fare. You may give me all silver if you have no small bills. Your eyes are very bright.’ “‘I am sorry I have not change enough in the drawer,’ I said. ‘I will send out one of the "waiters to get change.’ “This staggered him, and he took the note back and handed out 80. cents change, and I was so well pleased at detecting him that I did not discover until after he had left that he had given me a lead 50-cent piece. I know several lady cashiers who lost from 20 to 50 per” cent, of their salaries for months before they learned to detect bad money. Once learned, it is surprising how quick you can tell it. You cannot tell how you tell it, but you do, as the saying is, ‘feel it in your bones.’ At first it made me nervous and apprehensive, and almost sick, to keep up the constant strain of being on my guard. Even now 1 wonder how the cashiers in the big banks do it so quickly. They have so much to handle that they can hardly give a glance at each note. But, of course, they do not labor under the disadvantage of having soft nonsense talked to them to distract their attention. “It seems as if counterfeit money is growing much more plentiful all the time, and the variety of notes is now considerable when the different issues are considered. It is really no easy task to learn the appearance of all genuine notes. “Then we must look out for pasted notes, and mutilated notes, and all sorts of light and bogus coins. I assure you that with all this responsibility a lady cashier has not much time for silly talk with customers.”— New York Sun.