In the In the cheque service clearing service In 1883 167 » 1884 2,520 1,283 » 1885 6,877 4,733 » 1886 10,553 7,274 » 1887 12,981 8,758 » 1888 14,296 9,836 » 1889 16,046 11,025 » 1890 17,808 12,200 » 1891 19,391 13,331 » 1892 21,365 14,955 » 1893 23,471 16,197 » 1894 25,834 18,250 » 1895 28,363 20,750 From the above it is seen that the proportion per cent of the number of adherents to the service of clearing rises gradually in the later years;--after having from 1890 to 1893 been nearly uniformly from 69 to 70%, it rises in 1895 to 73.2%. The classification of the adherents from the point of view of conditions and profession reveals the elasticity peculiar to such an institution. Advocates, notaries, doctors, even professors appear in great numbers. Manufacturers and traders united represent nevertheless more than half the total number of members; 339 bankers and money-changers, 362 associations for savings and loans, 220 private savings banks, 1,490 associations or corporations,--public establishments of which 185 were communes and administrative bodies,--271 benevolent associations, funds, establishments and foundations, 175 agricultural and forestal associations and 175 religious associations, 266 assurance societies, and 204 journals or periodicals serving as media for the Savings Bank. The administration of the State forests and domains have recourse to the Savings Bank in order to bank the produce of the forestal sales, and the administration of taxes is now experimenting as to its intervention for the getting in of duties. This institution thus presents a marvellous flexibility, invading by degrees the whole domain of exchange and enveloping one by one all the organs of the collective life. Let us first explain the modes of operating payments to the profit of every member affiliated to the cheque and clearing service. In the first of these modes, the instrument employed is the _certificate or attestation of receipt and of deposit_ (_empfang erlag scheine_). (Fig. 1.) Books containing blank certificates are issued by the Central Office at the low price of a kreutzer the piece, to every person adhering to the cheque and clearing services; these are books of 10, 20, 50 and 100 pieces, and to meet the needs of various holders they are drawn up either in German or in some other of the tongues spoken in the Empire. All these certificates bear the number of the account to the operations of which they are destined and carry the name and the address of the account holder.