MISMANAGEMENT AND OTHER TROUBLES 57 
while the rest were of necessity neglected. The 
records in the Washington bank were not much 
better kept than elsewhere; there was in this city 
branch only one bookkeeper, who stated that he 
frequently had to work fourteen hours a day. 
Such heavy duty was too much for any man— 
certainly too much for a comparatively inex- 
perienced clerk. 
For several years there was a baffling discrep- 
ancy of more than $40,000 between the accounts 
of the branches and those of the principal office. 
Several times entirely new sets of books were 
opened in the hope of leaving the past behind 
and keeping straight for the future. An examina- 
tion of the books in later years showed that de- 
posits were sometimes entered as withdrawals 
and vice versa; a draft of $31.60 went down on 
the books as $3,160; $5,300 as $53.00, etc. Some- 
times it was impossible to tell from the records 
whether a certain transaction was a cash pay- 
ment, an extension of a loan, or a transfer of a 
loan.® One clerk testified that seldom could the 
books be balanced at night—the error would be 
from 5 cents to $5,000 one way or the other. 
When mistakes could not be found, he said, “We 
always waited for something to turn up”; when 
the cash balanced, all went out to celebrate the 
event. Practically all errors before 1871 were 
errors of ignorance; but after 1871 there was 
much designed “messing up.” 
The physical condition of the records was also 
bad. A committee of experts reported: “We 
found leaves cut from the original ledger, leaves 
*Report of accountants, Bruce Report, pp. 174, 282.