Puget Sound Weekly Argus

Different Styles of Checks.

"The style of a check," said a bank cashier to a reporter, "is often a pretty good indication of the character of the firm or individual that makes it. The newer the account of a man in a bank the bigger his checks, is an almost invariable rule. A man who has millions—men, for instance, like Armour and Marshall, Field and Pullman—use small checks, or, at least, medium sized ones. They are made of good paper, but they are quiet and businesslike. But Pumpkin, Hayseed & Co., who run a shingle mill in Michigan, and who have only been banking for a few months, have pictures and their names spread over big colored checks that look like three-sheet posters. On country checks nearly always there is a picture in one corner of the building occupied by the man whose name is signed at the bottom, sometimes a print of his daughter or his wife adorns the paper, and then his own countenance is at the margin. Then he has his name printed in big black letters over half the check, and his address over most the rest, and in the middle, in little letters, there is the name of the bank in which he has his money. The banks supply check books to their customers, but most people have their own printed.

"Sometimes the clerks, when they are not doing anything else, amuse themselves by drawing pictures on the checks, and the bald-headed president of the Oshkosh Incubator company, who has put a reproduction of his classic features where it will attract attention, finds to his surprise, when the check is returned, that he has a beautiful head of auburn hair, and that his lonely but unique single chin whisker has been joined by an elegant pointed mustache and James Russell Lowell sideboards. If his daughter's face is at the top, her form, clad in stylish garments and with a bustle like a bay window, is added. This makes a bank clerk's life worth living. But you can put it down as a pretty sure thing that when a firm is in the country, or is starting a fake business with plenty of wind in the city, it will spread itself on checks, but if it is a solid house of good standing and heavy backing the chances are that its checks will be almost severe in their modesty."—Chicago News.