[Volume XXVII
THE CHICAGO BANKER
28
Marshall & Ilsley Bank
Milwaukee, Wis.
ESTABLISHED 1847
Capital $500,000 Surplus $370,000
Oldest Bank in the Northwest Conservative Progressive
We take pleasure In placing our facilities at your disposal and should be pleased to have you write us if you are contemplating opening either an active or a reserve account in Milwaukee.
OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS JAMES K. ILSLEY. President
JOHN CAMPBELL, Vice-President HARRY J. PAINE, Asst. Cashier JOHN H. PUELICHER, Cashier	G. A. REUSS, Mdr. South Side Branch
SAMUEL H. MARSHALL	J. H. TWEEDY, Jr.
ROBERT N. McMYNN	C. C. YAWKEY
GUSTAV REUSS
The Audit Company of Illinois
1439-42 First National Bank Building, Chicago
Specialists in Auditing!	System-
atigif&gl Public Service Corporations
C. W. KNISELY, C. P. A.
President—Manager REFERENCES:
Leading Bond Houses dealing in Gas, Electric and Railway Securities
fessing their ignorance of business forms to one of their own sex.
“We find a lady teller satisfactory in that department, very satisfactory. Our present ladies’ teller has been with us in that capacity for the last five years.”
From all of which it would appear that the ladies’ teller in the ladies’ department of our national banks has come to stay.—Minneapolis Tribune.	_
Ex-State Treasurer’s Estate Involved
Columbus, Ohio, December 8.—Attorney-General U. G. Denman, upon the instructions of Governor Judson Harmon will institute proceedings against the estate and bondsmen of the late State Treasurer William S. McKinnon, for interest received on state funds loaned by him, prior to and subsequent to the passage of the state depository law, which went into effect November 4, 1904.
Besides this, the state’s legal adviser later will take up the alleged graft in some of the state departments.
So far-reaching will be the task of the attorney-general that it is said he will be compelled to bring further actions against persons not now made public, but as testimony in the courts will develop.
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More New York Insurance Scandal
New York, December 8.—Not since the big insurance expose of 1906, which led to a general revision of methods of the big companies, has the local insurance world received such a shock as has come in a statement from the state insurance department.
Not only is one company found to be at least $1,000,000 short in its surplus, but it is found its business has not been inspected for twenty years, while the officers whose duty it was to make inspection took “loans” from the company, ranging from $40,000 to $100,000.
The Phenix Insurance Company, of Brooklyn, is the one under investigation for irregularities, which it is believed, have impaired its surplus at least $1,000,000.
A statement concerning the conditions was laid by Superintendent Hotchkiss of the state insurance department before the district attorney for possible criminal action.
T׳»
E. Whitney, vice-president of the City Bank of New Haven, Conn., has been elected to the presidency to succeed C. E. Curtis.
fore opening time. As she gathered up her money she smiled complacently and said:
“ '1 do just love to get things done early.’ ”
When the subject was broached to Miss Fisher, the ladies’ teller at the Security Bank, she had such a smile of such genuine good-fellowship that one could almost have guessed the answer to the first question : “Do you find women customers difficult?”
“Why, no, indeed,” said Miss Fisher. “I find them very agreeable as a general rule. Of course, many of them have no knowledge of business forms, but they don’t seem to mind asking questions.”
“Have you been here long and do you enjoy your work?”
“I’ve been eight years in this bank and six’ years of that time at the teller’s window and I like it better than anything I could possibly do.”
“Are you the first lady teller the bank has employed?”
“Oh, no, indeed. The Security has had a lady teller for the last 15 years, and we have had some curious experiences in that time, too.”
_ Miss Fisher’s reminiscent smile broke into a ripple of laughter, but not one word more could she be induced to say on this subject. From another source it was learned that it was to this bank that one of the lady depositors telephoned that she found it impossible to get down to-day, but she must have some money, and would they please send out $25 and she would give them the check for the amount when they arrived.
Another requested the feminine teller to “just hold baby a minute while I see the landlord about papering my flat.” When refused she couldn’t see how any woman could help wanting to hold “such a cute little dear,” and she “would just withdraw her account and have her husband and all their friends withdraw theirs, too, so there.”
“Do you like to have women depositors in spite of the extra trouble they make?” was asked E. W. Decker, vice-president of the Northwestern National, as he leaned comfortably back in his office chair.
“Oh, they don’t make any trouble,” was his smiling reply. “We enjoy handling their accounts, and we do it, too. We have over 2,000 lady customers. We employ a lady teller because a woman prefers to do business with a woman. They feel less embarrassed in con-
Lady Tellers in Minneapolis
The teller’s window of the First National Bank frames the face of a very charming young woman, Miss Maud Buckland, whose interest in every detail of her work is fresh and vivid. When asked whether she liked her work, she replied, enthusiastically:
“Like my work? Indeed, I do. Why, when I first came in here as statement clerk and passed the teller’s window every day, I thought oh, if I could only get into that cage! And now I’m here, and I simply love my work. I can hardly wait until 10 o’clock to open,” and the ladies’ teller smiled the smile of one who has reached the goal of her ambition.
“Do you think there is much chance for a girl to rise in the banking business ?”
“Well,” putting on a look of wisdom much too old for her years, “you see, most women can’t go very far in the banking business, but there is opportunity for them to go as far as their limitations will allow. There isn’t anything ahead of the teller’s position except private secretaryship, and that, of course, is only open to stenographers.”
“Do you have any trouble with your customers ?”
"Trouble?” The bright face clouded. “Well yes; we do have trouble some times. You know, I have been teller only two months, and if people fuss very much they make me nervous. One of the cranky kind came in the other day with a check to cash, and when she got through, said to me:	‘You haven’t been here
long, have you?’
“ ‘No,’ I replied.
“‘Well, I hope you won’t be here much longer,’ and flounced out with her nose in the air. But most of the women are very pleasant and there are some I just love to see come in.
“Some funny things happen, too. Last week a customer presented a check without indorsement, and when I returned it to her for her signature she looked reproachfully at me and said : ‘I’ve been banking for 25 years and never yet had to indorse a check.’ She was really quite angry with me because she had to remove her glove and sign that paper.
“Another troublesome thing is that some women can’t realize that banking hours are banking hours, but think if there is anybody in the bank they should be attended to whenever they come in. I strained a point a few days ago for a woman of this class and cashed a draft for her at 8:30, an hour and a half be-