Incoming Currency Shipments The bill of lading for currency shipments coming from abroad is indorsed and forwarded to the bank's custom-house broker, with a statement of its value and instructions to have it examined at the bank or assay office. The broker has the shipping clerk or purser transfer title to the bank against receipt of documents or guaranty of ownership. To do this he pays the freight, gets a release, locates the steamer, and after inspection by the cus tom house inspector, has the freight delivered to the assay office against receipt. The receipt is returned to the bank for checking against the above statement. In case the bank has not received the shipping documents or part of them or they are not in order, the department issues to the custom house a guaranty of owner ship. Receipt of the currency is acknowledged to the consignor, and he is later informed of the amount of the proceeds after charging his account for insurance, freight, commission, cartage, custom house brokerage, and incidental expenses. In case a shortage appears in a currency shipment, affidavits are drawn up reciting the contents as received and signed by two persons. On certain shipments the department looks after the insurance. Currency shipments are often in series, one after another, from the same consignor to the same consignee and for the same ac count. They are also sometimes made to two accounts and the charges have to be prorated according to the division of the shipment.
The Translators' Department The translation of incoming letters from a foreign language into English and of the outgoing letters from English into the proper foreign language constitutes the work of the translators' department.
The incoming mail that requires translation is divided into three or more classes, and is taken up in the following order : 1. Specials, induding letter payments, transfers, etc., re quiring immediate attention.
2. Semispecials, including confirmations of cables of large amounts, advices, etc., requiring less prompt attention.
3. Reserve, such as acknowledgments, confirmations of small amounts, orders, circulars, etc., the translation of which may be postponed if necessary.
Copies of the originals and. translations are made and care fully checked, after which one copy is filed and the others are sent to the proper departments.
A clerk in the department examines the outgoing letters and determines in what language they are to be answered, the deter mination often being based on the request of certain correspond ents and customers abroad, particularly in small cities and towns. The translation of the outgoing mail is made in the latter part of the day and in the order of the foreign mail sailings.
The translators are, of course, required to possess an expert knowledge of the commercial language into and from which they are translating as well as of commercial English. The number
of translators needed in the department depends upon their lin guistic abilities, the volume of business done, and the number of countries with which transactions occur. The work is re sponsible, for' errors in translating may prove costly.
The Cable Department All cables and telegrams received and despatched by the foreign division are, respectively, decoded and coded in the cable department, which also handles the cable charges. The cables contain quotations of rates, orders to buy, sell, or deliver securities, or goods covered by collection items, orders for pay ments, requests for information, advices of payment or accept ance, difficulties that have arisen in connection with collection items, etc. The hours when the department is busiest coding and decoding messages are from 9 to 1, 12 :30 to 1:3o, and 3 to 5 :3o. The rest of the day is used in constructing and developing codes, registering cable addresses, incorporating new phrases in codes, checking cable bills, apportioning cable charges, and attending to correspondence. A large bank may possess froth 5o to 75 codes, some of them of very ingenious character and all of them designed to save time and money and some of them to insure secrecy.
The incoming cables are translated from code into plain language by two persons independently. These messages are then compared and harmonized and the text is copied into a book. A color scheme may be used to distinguish the cables for the different departments and avoid confusion. If a cable contains instructions for several departments, as many copies are made as are required.
A similar twofold translation from English into code is made of outgoing cables, which are compared, harmonized, and re corded in a book. To protect itself in transferring money by cable, the bank adopts a system of control. In the preparation and despatch of messages both the cable clerk in the foreign tellers' department and the clerk in the cable department are required to use the original contract of instructions in coding the cable, and a careful comparison is made of their translations be fore the cable is despatched. A second control is the use of test words, or secret symbols, which are always added to important cables to establish their authenticity and thus guard against fraud. The test words are controlled by an officer, who will not communicate them to the cable clerk unless his figures agree with those of the cable department. A third and final check or con trol is made by the auditing department, which checks the original cable against the duplicate copy received from the cable company.