DisplayTag and Multiple Columns of Data

Greetings - This problem is a little tough to explain so bear with me...

By default, the DisplayTag library assumes that you just want your data (which can comprise 1 or more columns) in a single logical column. So say I display check numbers and check dates as follows:

10000 (01/01/2005)
10001 (01/02/2005)
10002 (01/03/2005)
...

This does not take advantage of the real-estate of the web page. It would be much better to display the data like this:

10000 (01/01/2005) 10001 (01/02/2005) 10002 (01/03/2005) 10003 (01/04/2005)
10004 (01/05/2005) 10005 (01/06/2005) 10006 (01/07/2005) 10007 (01/08/2005)
...

So you have in this case 2 logical columns of data, with each column of data represented by 2 columns of information (check # and date) if you will. I cannot seem to find way to set this scenario up. I thought you could do something like this:

<display:table name="<%=checks%>" id="check" length="<%=checks.size()%>" pagesize="25" offset="0">
    <display:column title="">
        <jsp:getProperty name="check" property="checkNumber" />
                (<jsp:getProperty name="check" property="checkDateStr" />)
        </display:column>         
    <display:column title="">
        <jsp:getProperty name="check" property="checkNumber" />
                (<jsp:getProperty name="check" property="checkDateStr" />)
        </display:column>
</display:table>

But this does not work. You end up with this:

10000 (01/01/2005) 10000 (01/01/2005) 10001 (01/02/2005) 10001 (01/02/2005)
10002 (01/03/2005) 10002 (01/03/2005)
...

Each collection item is duplicated twice, since the <display:column> tag has no way of incrementing to the next item in the collection. Iterating throught the collection only takes place at the <display:table> level, not the <display:column> level.

Help - Is there a way to display multiple logical columns of data (as in my example above) ?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Mark