Before ten o'clock in the morning sixty messengers, each having fifty-nine parcels to deliver, appear at the clearing-house, each reporting to the manager at once for record the amount of "exchange" he has brought, which is entered of course as _credit_ to his bank; and then all take their positions in order in front of the sixty desks, which occupy the floor of the house, behind which sit sixty clerks, each representing one of the banks. Each messenger stands opposite the desk of his own bank, with his fifty-nine parcels already arranged in the exact order of the bank-desks before him. Of course no messenger has anything to deliver to the clerk of his own bank. Each clerk inside his desk has a sheet of paper containing the names of all the other banks arranged in the same order as the desks, with the amounts carried out upon it which his messenger has just brought to each. All these are entered in his credit column. Each messenger carries also a slip of paper ready to be delivered with each parcel to each clerk, on which is entered the amount of the cheques he now brings to each bank. Of course the amount delivered _to_ each bank is _debit_ to that bank, just as the amount brought _by_ each is _credit_ to that bank. A signal from the manager, who stands on a raised platform at one end of the room with his two or more clerks before him, and each messenger steps forward to the next desk in front of him, delivers his parcel and also the slip that goes with it, which latter the clerk signs with his initials and hands back to the messenger as his voucher for the delivery; and then each messenger advances to the next desk,--the whole _cue_ moving in order,--at which precisely the same things take place as before, and so on, until the circuit of the room is made, and each comes opposite again the desk of his own bank, having passed to each its "exchange" and taken a receipt for each delivery. This process takes about ten minutes; when each clerk, who had on his sheet to start with the _credit_ due to his bank, has now the _data_ (fifty-nine items) by which to calculate the _debit_ of his bank. The difference between the aggregate of cheques _received_ and _brought_ by his bank is the balance due _to_ or _from_ the clearing-house as to that bank.