Who Wants Accountants?

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 43, 9 May 1930, Page 24

Who Wants Accountants?

ERE is an interesting item o* the way in which bakers in some districts of rural France keeps accounts with their peasant clients) Many cannot read, and hence 2 system of tokens is employed. To check the bread account, the baker on his rounds carries a small stick for each customer. The customer has a mate for the stick. When a loaf is delivered, the two pieces of stick are put together, and a notch cut across the joint. At the end of the month settlement is made on the basis of the joint tally. The system avoids any room for argument, because one stick cannot be notched without its mate, or else there are explanations to seek. This habit, a friend with a historical bent tells me, is a perpetuation of the old English tally employed for accounting between the King and his county sheriffs. The two-stick system was in vogue, and they were notched in accordance with the follownig definite plan.

4 Thousands were indicated by a notch the width of a palm, hundreds by a notch the width of a thumb, scores by a notch the width of a little finger, and pounds by the breadth of a barleycorn. That was the way accounts were kept before everyone could write and book-keep-

ing came in.-

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