Business: Who Pays Bills?

Who pays his bills the most promptly— butcher, baker or candlestick maker? From credit men the length & breadth of the land Professor Paul D. Converse of the University of Illinois sought the answer. When his data were assembled, the National Association of Finance Companies arranged the answers by occupational groups on a percentage basis. Last week Cleveland Trust Co. charted the results. No class was rated 100%. At the top were office clerks with 92%. Various types of storekeepers ranked below clerks and just ahead of schoolteachers (85%) and railroad trainmen. Dentists (82%) and doctors (80%) were not far ahead of their nurses. Male factory workers ranked ahead of traveling salesmen (69%). Lawyers with 61% are as good a risk as female factory workers and only a shade better than auto mechanics, tenant farmers, brick masons and janitors. Policemen, firemen, track walkers and coal miners are all more honest than college students (56%), who are in about the same class as servants and carpenters. There is not much choice between hotel help, restaurant help, common labor and automobile salesmen (47%). It is a toss-up between barbers and truck drivers. Worst risk are painters and decorators, rated 38%.