Fifthly.

When the bearer of a cheque book is at the same time an adherent to the clearing circulation, the amount of the cheques issued in his favour is carried to the credit of his account by the Postal Savings Bank, unless on these cheques is expressly noted: Outside the clearing circulation.

The amount of this service, after that of the empfang erlag scheine, is the most important element in the formation of the accounts' credit. It has nearly quintupled in the last ten years, moving forward, since 1886, at a steady rate, a proof, as the whole of the facts otherwise witness, of the progressive penetration of the system into the national economy.

At the opening of the institution of clearing verkehr, in the second fortnight in 1884, the amount of the sums carried to the clearing account was:

18841,620,102florins
188540,271,880»
1886102,185,786»
1887150,479,085»
1888177,846,958»
1889216,683,156»
1890264,262,296»
1891310,141,924»
1892360,498,168»
1893414,342,892»
1894445,378,270»
1895482,031,950»

The last and assuredly the most ingenious of the application of the system is being made at this very time in the payment of taxes.

The certificate of the payment of taxes (steuer Einzahlungs-schein) is nothing but a special form of empfang erlag schein; the Savings Bank proceeds experimentally by the trial of this mode of collecting the taxes in the province of Lower Austria.

The document, which costs 5 kreutzers, is divided into three parts: the Empfang schein, the Erlag schein, the Treasury acknowledgement: Amtliche bestätigung (confirmation and official attestation). (Fig. II.)

The tax payer pays at the Post Office the amount of his tax which must be paid to the account of the central administration of taxes at Vienna; the document bears the account number of this Receipt Office of Taxation. The attestation of this payment of the tax-payer is signed by the postal employé and bears the stamp of his post office.