Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1867-04-11

It goes for plays and diamond pins,
For public aims and privats sins,
For hollow shams and silly shows,
And that's the way the money goes.
THE sUB-TREASURY.
The vaults of the United States Sub Treasury
are said to exceed in size those of the Bank OF Eng
land. The strong and burglar-proof manner in
which they have been constructed excites the ad-
immense vaults, one at each corner Of the Pine
street end of the rotunda. The rooms are perhaps
twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, and ten or
twelve feet high. They contain no window; there
is but one door opening into each, and gas-hghts
are kept burning inside.
The internal appearance Of these. vaults has a
striking resemblance to fashionable tomb In
Greenwood Cemetery, rows of cases being arranged
around the sides of the room, each about two feet
square, with iron doors attached. There is one
door for each case, and when the apartment has
been filed with bags of gold Or bundles of green
backs, the doors are closed. Each case will con-
tain half million of dollars put up in bags. OF
five thousand dollars each. When case is thus
filed, the door is closed and seal isafxed in the
presence of the Naval Officer and the Surveyor Of
the Port. It takes one hundred bags to hold half
million otdolars In the first vault entered there
were sevnnty-two compartments arranged around
the room, which formed tier somewhat higher
than mans head.
Running over the top of these was a balcony
with an iron railing in front there was piled up in
this balcony, in one heap, six millions OF dollars IN
five and ten dollar bills; onehaf million dollars in
internal revenue stamps, fifty thousand dollars in
fractional currency, put up in large paper boxes,
and FIVE and one-haf millions in United States
bonds.
The floor of the vault rests on thirty feet of solid
masonry, from the ground up. On the top OF this
granite there are two feet OF wrought iron, and be-
tween the iron plates space filled up with bu!
lets. IF a rogue should succeed in boring through
the granite and iron, the moment his drill touched
bullet that would commence to revolve, and by
the time he had penetrated it another ball would
drop in its place in this way he would soon find
that he had an endless job before him and the at
tempt to get into the vault would have to be aban-
doned.
The sides and top Of the room are composed OF
eight feet of granite and two of iron arranged in
the same manner as for the floor. This safe, as it
is called, was invented by Mr.. Isaiah Rogers. Mr..
Rogers once remarked that if the people at the
Treasury building should happen to get locked out
of the safe it would take him month to break in
to it. A night watch is kept to look after these
strong boxes, but they are considered perfectly
safe without him.
There are four doors to be opened, one after
another before we can enter the safe Each one
of these doors weighs two tons and contains locks OF
different patterns A lever is so arranged that af
ter the doors are closed four large iron bolts are
thrown across the doorway resting in sockets,
which have been made in pillar of wrought iron.
IF thief should succeed in cutting the hinges Of
one of these doors, usually considered to be the
most vulnerable point, the door would not drop
down from its place, and nothing would be gained.
Like the deacons celebrated one-horse shay, these
doors are made as strong in one part as in another,
and the hinges show no signs Of weakness. 1t will
take fearful earthquake to shake them down.
No goodidea can be given to the reader of the
locks and their operation, but few general re-
marks may be Of interest The first door has one
of Dobb's Eureka locks; there is no key hole for
this and the outside combination wheel is divided
into the letters of the alphabet the nine units, and
fractions of figures The combinations which may
be made by this arrangement are endless, and no
one can open the lock, showing back the bolts, un-
less he knows the words, figures and fractions
which have been used in locking the door.
Even if a person was so fortunate as to get from
Mr.. Birdsall the combination, he must have an
extensive acquaintance with the lock to know how
to manipulate it correctly. The second door con-
LalnS al lSIdu lOCh, MulCu ID dItoSctu0I ullCiCio
from Dobb's lock. The third door has L. Gales
Monitor lock- and the fourth door contains Gale s
double treasury locks From one Of these DOORS
after it has been fastened portion of the lock is
taken of, and put under lock and key in some Sc
cret place. Without this it would be useless to at
tempt to get into the safe.
The second vault is much larger than the first
one described, but just as difficult to get into
There are one hundred and twenty cases in this
room where gold can be put and sealed up At
the time we looked into the vault there were nine.
ty tons, or forty-fve millions of dollars in gold
slowed in the room, and twenty millions in paper.
The greenbacks, as they are paid into the Treasu-
ry are put up in packages Of one thousand bills
each, al of the same denomination. A package
of one dollar bills contains one thousand dollars;
of five dollar bills, five thousand dollars; Of five
hundred dollar bills, five hundred thousand dollars.
In one small box we were shown six small packa-
ges, each of which contained one million Of dollars.
Money is handled in the Treasury buildings in
wholesale manner, packing trunks standing about
full of it, large willow baskets on wheels being used
to carry it in, &C. The sight of it becomes so COM
mon that the clerks employed regard it with the
utmost indifference, handling it as they would SO
much brown paper.
The vestisule or the second vault is called the
Book vault, and contains the cancelled obligations
of the United States, ton or two Of paymaster' s
checks. All these books and checks are carefully
York Gazette.