Crossed Cheques.
Though this practice originated in the United Kingdom, the French banks have now adopted the idea, which is as simple as it is undoubtedly useful and protective to the customer. A cheque may be crossed either generally or specially—specially, that is to say, to some bank or to the account of an individual who keeps an account with a banker.
If a customer draw two parallel lines across the face of a cheque, thus, / /, he has instructed his banker not to give cash in exchange for it to the payee across his counter. It follows that a cheque so marked must be passed through a banking account. The words “& Co.” are sometimes written between the lines; but this addition is almost meaningless, the simple crossing being all that is required.
A person who draws two parallel lines across his cheque, gives the following instructions to his banker: “Do not pay cash over your counter in exchange for this cheque, which must reach you through a banker, and be paid to him alone.”
When, therefore, you wish a person to whom your cheque is made payable to go to your banker’s and draw the money, you will be careful not to cross it. Practice, somehow, always seems at war with theory, and it is not by any means an unusual occurrence for a lady, after having deliberately told her banker not to pay cash for her cheque to the presenter, to indignantly inquire why he did not disobey her behest and do so. A prudent teller seldom descends to either argument or explanation, but calmly accepts such reproof as one of the amenities of his calling, and resigns himself philosophically to the inevitable.