In handling thousands of checks daily, it can be seen what a stupendous task it would be for a bank to keep a complete record of the drawers and _all_ the endorsers on every check. Its force of clerks would have to be doubled or trebled. The bank should not be expected to keep your private memoranda, and it is the duty of the depositor to keep a complete record of the parties from whom he gets the checks that he deposits or cashes. If a check is lost in the mails, the bank has a perfect right, after giving the depositor the amount, the date on which it was deposited, and the town in which it was payable, to charge the amount to the depositor's account until he furnishes a duplicate of the lost check. So, if you cash a check drawn by John B. Smith, for example, and payable to James A. Jones, and then endorsed by several other parties; it is your duty, and not the bank's, to keep a record of the person from whom you received that check, and obtain a duplicate if it is lost before reaching its destination. Also with all other checks which you deposit or cash. Many retail firms cash checks for customers; and after endorsing, will deposit them for collection; keeping absolutely no record of the sources from which they received them. For example,--Mrs. Brown, of St. Louis, receives a check from her son in Cincinnati. She gets it cashed at the dry goods store with which she deals. Then the merchant deposits it, with numerous other checks, in his bank for collection. If the check is returned unpaid, the bank certainly has a perfect right to call on the merchant to pay it. The merchant then calls on Mrs. Brown to pay him. Now if that check is lost in the mails, say burned in a railroad wreck, the bank has the same right to call on the merchant for a duplicate. And it is no valid excuse for him to say that he has no record of the person from whom he received it. In short, each person endorsing a check should keep a record of the person from whom he received it, or for whom he endorsed it.