Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/237

 some modern nations, by positive enactment, but as it was deemed base to charge what was not justly due, so it was held to be nefarious to omit entering what was due to others. The Roman merchants were evidently well acquainted with book-keeping by single entry, as they kept their accounts, Rationes, in a book or ledger called codex, with headings in columns accepti or expensi (the received and the paid away); they had also a book containing each debtor's or creditor's name, and they posted in the ledger, at least once a month, the various items of debit and credit, which it was incumbent on every trader to state fairly and punctually. They had likewise a sort of waste-book (adversaria); and it was deemed a suspicious circumstance if entries in this rough book were neglected, and not duly entered on the codex in the regular course of business. But though the system of single entry adopted by the Roman merchants and ship-owners much resembles that of modern times, their books were entirely different from those now in use among the traders of Europe and of the United States of America. They were rather rolls of papyrus, each roll or page being divided into columns. The codex or ledger contained the separate accounts, in accordance with the still prevailing practice, headed with the proper name and titles of the respective parties, every transaction being duly transferred or posted into it for permanent observation and record. The ledger