Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1910 — NIGHT TOILERS IN BANKS. [ARTICLE]

NIGHT TOILERS IN BANKS.

Some Money Repositories 'Work Clerleal .Forees Continuously. Four big banks in the Wall street district resemble the great gold mines of the West in one striking feature, Harper’s Weekly feays. They have three eight-hour shifts of toilers, and the work never stops. One set takes up the routine where the other leaves off. All night long, Sundays and holidays, a staff of men in each of these banks is busy opening thousands of letters, sorting and listing Innumerable checks and drafts that represent fabulous sums of money and getting them ready for the day force, which is the only one the public comes in contact with or eVer hears about. If this work was not carried on incessantly the banks would soon be overwhelmed with a mountainous accumulation of detail.

Two shifts —the “scouting force,” as they call themselves —work between 5 in the afternoon and 9 the next morning. Each bank has a hig drawer In the general postoffice. Messengers clear this of its letters every hour all night long. Three thousand letters a day is the average mail of one of these large banks. Two-thirds of it comes in during the night. These letters, in the case of one of the biggest of these banks, contain from 35,000 to 40,000 checks and drafts. At times these inclosures represent as much as $30,000,000. Rarely does the total fall below $c20,000,000. The letters are opened as fast as they are received, the checks are counted and the totals verified with the footings of the lists. The letters are then stamped, which shows that they have been “proved in,” as the banks call it. After that they are turned over to the clerks, who send out the formal aenowledgments of the remittances they contain. The various checks are assorted according to the numbers of tjie books in which th**y are to be entered and otherwise; j;he sight drafts are grouped according to the routes of the bank’s messengers and all is made ready for turning the night’s accumulation over to the day force, so it may be handled by it as expeditiously as possible. Each of these shifts of night workers at the banks consists of from twelve to t-wenty .men. Some banks get along with but one extra set of clerks at night. These come on duty at midnight and ldave at 8 a. m. This plan of working all night long in arder to keep up with the tremendous amount of business that comes in by mail was inaugurated about five years ago. The first bank that tried it found that so much valuable daytime was saved that one institution after anotner took it up, until now there are four that have these three eight-hour shifts of clerks, and several more who work only a part of the night.