BOOK-KEEPING, is the history of public or private property in all its changes ; and of the causes of these changes, and of the increase or decrease of property following from them.
The general history of property, written in the order of time, is called the Waste-book : When ,, ten specially to point out the causes of the changes, it is called the Journal: When the particular parts of each transaction, separate from each other in point of time, are collected together in the' great book, the Leger. They also form a general history, but of a nature different from the two former.
The Grecian history has left us a memorial of great anxiety about public accounts in Pericles, who was admonished by Alcibiades not to trouble himself a bout them ; and in the person of Augustus, who presented the state of the nation (Rationarum, Suet. In Aug. c. 28.) to the magistrates and senate assem bled in his own house to a committee of accounts, The Grecian and Roman languages furnish also the names used in the arrangement : Diploma, a grant ; syngraplizszn, a bill ; gramma, a note ; cautio, a note ; taba ler, the entire account ; magnus liber, the Leger; tempos venale, the day of sale • sanguinolentce cente simce, — usury, (Seneca, De Reuel. lib. vii. cap. 10.) ; and utraque pagina, debtor and creditor, (Pliny, lib. ii. cap. 7.) The slaves formed a great part of the population of the Roman world ; they were employed on the farms, and in the work-houses, which were' manu factories ; their maintenance, and rewards (peculium), were certainly valued by their labour ; these farms extended nearly over entire provinces ; these work houses were as large as cities ; and these slaves were as numerous as warlike nations (Seneca, Ibid.); and all these were under the controul, and for the advan tage, of individuals in a private station, who diligent ly and eagerly examined the great book. (Seneca, Ibid.) Notwithstanding this, there is no method by which it can be ascertained, whether their accounts were kept by a general history in the order of time, or by the particular history of each article, as those do now who are not acquainted with the art. No book, or part of 'a book of this kind, has been preserved during the revolution of the Roman world.
s The cities of Italy in the middle ages raised them selves to power' by commerce. In the time of the crusades, they were not only carriers, but also con tractors. The Venetians felt the effects of the league of Cambray in the beginning of the 16th century. It was after this period that the system of book-keep ing, the appendage of commerce, became known in England. Hugh Oldcastle published his work in 1543, and John Peile in 1569. These and their suc cessors laboured only to settle the forms of words in the two Day-books, leaving the Leger without an absolute rule, (§ 28. 51.) Nothing more was done even on the,Continent: Mr Macolm at length pub lished his work ; wherein he spewed by example, that the writing of the titles of the Leger accounts in a margin of a third of the page to the left of the entry of the Waste-book, was a sufficient prepara tion for the Leger • because the original entry was in the view of the book-keeper : thus the full half of the former labour was saved. Mr Ephraim Cham
bers (edit. 1738) Wrongly recommended this prac tice ; but few followed this good example. Even the most popular of the present writers, Mr Kelly, has not thought proper to recommend it. .
Transferring the accounts from one book to an other, and thus making.three fair copies of the same I transaction, one in the Journal, and two in the Leger, 1 produced a great of weariness and inattention, and of course mistakes. The balancing of the Leger was a most serious undertaking, and seldom success-, fully accomplished ; and even then, it could not be proved to be an exact transcript of the Day-books. To remedy this, Mr Jones of Bristol, an account , ant by profession, in 1796, published a work, to shew a method of forming a balance-sheet in the Day-books. • For this purpose he used a Day-book for the entries of personal and cash accounts, and an other for the entries of goods, with their prices ; hut without any reference to the. personal or cash ac-• counts, but by the dates. The personal and cash accounts were respectively entered in' the marginal columns ; and their total were to be the same as the. general column of entry, which was placed near the creditor marginal column. With this preparation he set out ; and having collected the balances of goods,, added the total to the debtor column of the cash and. personal accounts, and truly prepared for the answer, according to the examples given. The proposal and book were received with an eagerness which mani fested the anxiety of the mercantile world. Mr. Jones failed, because he did not understand the language of the art ; 'because he did not know the only difference which exists between the two orders of accounts, of those which have inner columns and of those which have none ; and because he did not observe how these two orders of accounts concur to form the balance sheet in the Leger. The reviewers (Analytical Re view, 1796, April) equally spewed their want of in formation on the subject, when they spent their time in refuting his phantom of single entry ; and by as serting, that nothing was gained by the system if it were double entry. They did not observe the omis sion of all those accounts, which,' by having 'inner columns, could not be introduced into his plan. A later writer has asserted, that the detection of an er ror decided the- controvery. Mr Jones' examples could admit but a clerical error. The principle must hold : but Mr Jones' plan failed, because there, could be no reference to the accounts of goods ; be cause no entry could be made of those acquired by barter, nor of accounts between employers and fac tors, nor, between dealers in exchange ; and especially