this provision obtains the book-keeping methods are in an accordingly comparatively backward state. The inventory book comprises periodical lists of ledger balances and the balance sheet, records which are invariably kept under every adequate system, although not always in a book specially set aside for that purpose. In Germany the statutory requirements are similar to those in France, save that the journal is not compulsory; but there is an additional provision that the accounts are to be kept in bound books with the pages numbered consecutively—a requirement which makes the introduction of card or loose-leaf ledgers of doubtful legality. A balance sheet must be drawn up every year; but where a stock-in-trade is from its nature or its size difficult to take, it is sufficient for an inventory to be taken every two years. In Belgium the law requires every merchant to keep a journal recording his transactions from day to day, which (with the balance book) must be initialled by a prescribed officer. All letters and telegrams received, and copies of all such sent, must be preserved for ten years. The Commercial Code of Spain requires an inventory, journal, ledger, letter book and invoice book to be kept; while that of Portugal prescribes the use of a balance book, journal, ledger and copy-letter book. The law of Holland requires business men to keep books in which are correctly recorded their commercial transactions, letters received and copies of letters sent. It also provides for the preparation of an annual balance sheet. The law of Rumania makes the employment of journal, inventory book and ledger compulsory, a small tax per page being charged on the two first named. There are no special provisions as to book-keeping contained in the Russian law, nor in the United States law, but in Russia public companies have to supply the government with copies of their annual accounts, which are published in a state newspaper, and in the United States certain classes of companies have to submit their accounts to an official audit. In general terms it may be stated that at the present time the employment of card and loose-leaf ledger systems is more general in the United States than in Great Britain.
Apart from the organizations of professional accountants, there is none of note devoted to the scientific study of book-keeping other than purely educational institutions. Among the universities those in the United States were the first to include accounting as part of their curriculum; Education. while in Great Britain the London School of Economics (university of London), the university of Birmingham, and the Victoria University of Manchester have, so far, alone treated the subject seriously and upon adequate lines. Quite recently Japan has been making a movement in the same direction, and other countries will doubtless follow suit. In England there have for a number of years past been various bodies—such for instance as the Society of Arts, the London Chamber of Commerce and Owens College, Manchester—which hold examinations in book-keeping and grant diplomas to successful candidates, while most of the polytechnics and technical schools give instruction in book-keeping; these latter, however, for the most part regard it as a “craft” merely.
Authorities.—Those interested in the bibliography of book-keeping are referred to the catalogue of the library of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which probably contains the most complete collection in existence of ancient and modern works on accounting, both British and foreign. The following short list comprises those most likely to be found of general interest: G. van de Linde, Book-keeping (1898); L. R. Dicksee, Book-keeping (5th ed., 1906) and Advanced Accounting (2nd ed., 1905); Encyclopaedia of Accounting, ed. by G. Lisle (1903); Accountants’ Library, ed. by the editor of The Accountant (1901); J. W. Heaps, The Antiquity of Book-keeping (1898); History of Accounting and Accountants, ed. by R. Brown (1905). (L. R. D.)
BOOK-PLATES. The book-plate, or ex-libris, a printed label intended to indicate ownership in individual volumes, is nearly as old as the printed book itself. It bears very much the same relation to the hand-painted armorial or otherwise symbolical personal device found in medieval manuscripts that the printed page does to the scribe’s work. The earliest known examples of book-plates are German. According to Friedrich Warnecke, of Berlin (one of the best authorities on the subject), the oldest movable ex-libris are certain woodcuts representing a shield of arms supported by an angel (fig. 1), which were pasted in books presented to the Carthusian monastery of Buxheim by Brother Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach, about the year 1480—the date being fixed by that of the recorded gift.
Fig. 1.—Gift-plate of Hildebrand Brandenburg of Biberach |
Fig. 2.—Book-plate of Sir Nicholas Bacon (slightly reduced). |
The woodcut, in imitation of similar devices in old MSS., is hand-painted. In France the most ancient ex-libris as yet discovered is that of one Jean Bertaud de la Tour-Blanche, the date of which is 1529; and in England that of Sir Nicholas Bacon, a gift-plate for the books he presented to the university of Cambridge (fig. 2).
