Personal Inspection

When Price Waterhouse & Co. accountants checked McKesson & Robbins drug and liquor stocks last year, they failed to note that $18,000,000 worth of "inventories" did not exist. When Schenley Distillers Corp. directors got around to making their annual report for 1938, they decided no accountants could be expected to know much about whiskey. So they hired Coverdale & Colpitts, consulting engineers, to prove conclusively that Schenley's $44,000,000 inventories really existed.

Last week the annual report, showing 1938 earnings of $4,050,173, contained Coverdale & Colpitts' solemn assurance: "We have satisfied ourselves by personal inspection that the properties described on these records are in use or available for use. ..." First time any company had ever thus checked its inventories, Schenley's action was hailed as public-relations stunt-of-the-week.

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