They trusted only banks with granite facades, marble floors and thick bars on the tellers' cages--and passbooks they could fondle.

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One estimate says there are around 10m extant bearer passbooks, many of them hidden away, perhaps even forgotten, under mattresses, in wardrobes and in safe deposit boxes.

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It has now given a six-month reprieve to holders of bearer passbooks, which, although generally used by unsophisticated savers, are also an easy means of transferring money illicitly.

ECONOMIST: Savings accounts in Italy

Customers too busy to go to the local post office themselves may hand over their passbooks to visiting salesmen, who will arrange a new account for them at no extra charge.

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His commitment to nonviolent change was tested, however, in March of 1960 when black protestors in the township of Sharpeville were fired upon by South African police as they gathered to protest a law that required all black citizens to carry passbooks at all times.

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