6(39 



BOOK-KEEPING. 



Book- 

 Keeping. 



Its nature. 



In forms. 



Its exist- 



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 writ- 

 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, bnt 

 of a nature different from the two former. 



The Grecian history has left us a memorial of great 

 ence in the anxiety about public accounts in Pericles, who was 

 Grecian admonished by Alcibiades not to trouble himself a- 

 and Roman \y OUt them ; and in the person of Augustus, who 

 presented the state of the nation (Bationarum, Suet, 

 in Aug. c. 28. ) to the magistrates and senate assem- 

 bled in his own house to a committee of accounts. 

 The names The Grecian and Roman languages furnish also 

 used in the the names used in the arrangement : Diploma, a grant ; 

 art - syngraphuin, a bill ; gramma, a note ; cautio, a note ; 

 tabula, the entire account ; magnus liber, the Leger ; 

 tcmpus venale, the day of sale ; sanguinoletttce cente- 

 simal, usury, ( Seneca, De Benef. 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 j 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. 



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- 

 introduced ing, the appendage of commerce, became known in 

 intoEng- England. Hugh Oldcastle published his work in 

 1543, and John Peile in 1569. These and their sue- 

 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 Macohn at length pub- 



I he neces- 

 sity of the 

 art among 

 them. 



Their me- 

 thod not 

 known. 



The Italians 

 were the 

 authors of 

 the system 



land. 



lished his work ; wherein he shewed by example, Buok- 



that the writing of the titles of the Leger accounts Keeping. 



in a margin of a third of the page to the left of the ' ", , 



/'-l ixt . i i cc Macolm s 



entry of the Waste-book, was a sumcient prepara- i mpro<e . 



tion for the Leger ; because the original entry was ment. 

 in the view of the book-keeper : thus the full half of 

 the former labour was saved. Mr Ephraim Cham- 

 bers (edit. 1738) strongly 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- Mr Jones's 

 other, and thus making three fair copies of the same system of 

 transaction, one in the Journal, and two in the Leger, "glance m 

 produced a great degree of weariness and inattention, , l^,i, s a ^" 

 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 ; but 

 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 His failure 

 failed, because he did not understand the language of in the at- 

 the art ; because he did not know the only difference tempt, 

 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 shewed 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 



