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  • 1998-12-30 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Someone Once Write a Check on the Side of a Cow? (en)
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  • Although nearly everyone who still writes checks uses the sequentially numbered forms torn from books of blanks ordered from a printing company, there is no requirement that a bank customer must use such forms. Indeed, that fact has given rise to a number of tales about checks written on surfaces other than paper: In that vein, the story of the check written on the side of a cow is so widespread that major banks reportedly make reference to it in pamphlets given out to new depositors as an example of some of the unusual things people have used as checks. Nonetheless, it's a completely fabricated tale, and it sprang straight from the adventures of one Albert Haddock, the fictitious and fanciful creation of British writer A.P. Herbert. Herbert's book Uncommon Law was first published in 1935. Herbert himself was called to the English Bar but never practiced, choosing another career path instead. He was a regular contributor to Punch for more than fifty years and the author of eight novels. He became a member of Parliament in 1935 and fought successfully for the reform of many licensing, divorce, and obscenity laws. Okay, now you know a bit about the author. As for his wondrous creation, Albert Haddock, here's a bit from the introduction to Uncommon Law: Haddock wasn't a real person any more than Sherlock Holmes was. A.P. Herbert loved writing about the law, so he created Haddock as an ongoing character upon whom he could hang his fanciful stories. The BBC's Misleading Cases comedy series, based on the exploits of the fictional Albert Haddock, used this one of Herbert's tales for its premier episode (The Negotiable Cow, originally aired 20 June 1967), and someone at the Memphis Press-Scimitar picked up on it, didn't get the joke, and presented it as something that really happened. Not content to leave well enough alone, the Press-Scimitar threw in the bit about the Chase Manhattan Bank to lend an extra bit of believability to the tale. One wonders how many cattle have been led into the Chase Manhattan Bank over the years thanks to the Press-Scimitar's gullibility. (NOTE: A number of Internet sources cite the 1985 edition of Michael Liepner's Applying the Law as documentation of the claim that In Canada during the 1930s, a farmer painted a cheque on the side of a cow and cashed it. This citation is erroneous: the referenced book contains no such statement.) (en)
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