The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-05

no mistakes. The packages of little notes,
right from IL, with no other count, are banded
and packed in pasteboard boxes, containing
$lOOO TO $3OOO, and sent to the Treasury ready
for issue
Everywhere on our rounds have we passed
| girls counting, by hand, uncut sheets OF notes.
ponds, and stamps-usually in packages of
iVVO' with long practice, they grow singu-
iaI!y expert. You see only a confused hut-
tering of leaves, while they count 1000 sheets
| in four minutes.
Upon the separated notes they carry on
| swiftly curious, double mental operation.
Every sheet of greenbacls originally contains
l0nr Dllls. After cutting apart, Clark ma
chine drops them into four boxes. Being
| numbered cOnsecutively, their order, in any
one OF these boxes will "skip four" If the
top note is l02 GAO, the second will be lO2 GA,
and so on to the end. The girl takes up
handful OF these notes. BY one process, she
| must count them off into packages OF 100, and
also make sure that the Department numbers
come in proper sequence. To repeat, at every
note, the long 102, $40 etc, would be endless
| So, while running her fingers over each note
she gives, simultaneously with its count, only
| the final figure of its Department number
thus:-''1-O, PA, 3-S, a. Sc, CO."
on through the whole hundred. Your eye
can barely follow her lightning speed, checked
here and there for a second, as she whisks
| tells her it is in the wrong place. She grows
so used to this singular double enumeration,
that she cannot possibly count single hun
| dred rapidly, without carrying this attendant
| sequence along with it in her mind.
Bonds, when completed, are delivered to the
| Register; National Bank notes to the Control
Ter; greenbacks and fractional currency to the
| Treasurer. We have in circulation S2S, O0O, 600
| of fractional currency. 1t wears so rapidly
that we reissue $500, 900 weekly, to take the
place of spoiled notes called in and cancelled.
| The Printing and Engraving Bureau han
dies daily from $4,000, 600 to $50, 1000, 600 of
our various public securities. 1t has manu-
featured, in whole or in part, more than
1900, 100000 And yet the Government has
never lost one dollar of it, except single def
| cheney of $l100, which occurred before the
Bureau was fairly organized. 1t is an unex-
ampled chapter in financial history.
| Like that cylinder where old notes are
| thrown, to be transformed into new paper, the
safe where dies and bed pieces are deposited,
| and the other safe, large as parlor, which
contains finished notes and bonds have each
two or three locks, whose several keys are
kept by separate custodians. They are never
opened save in presence of two or more per-
sons. No die or bed-piece in a workman's
hand ever goes out of sight of the officer re-
sponsible for it. Otherwise, with dishonest
artisan, it might be duplicated, whereby the
| counterfeiters would triumph.
The checks and balances which protect these
immense amounts, passing through hundreds
of hands, against carelessness and dishonesty,
are very perfect and wonderful. They rest on
these simple principles:-1. Every package
and sheet of paper designed to make money of
is treated as money from the moment it comes,
blank, into the Bureau. No sheet, nor single
note, defective, or spoiled at any stage, is
thrown away. Each bit of paper, once re-
liz II
higher officers of the Treasury. 2. No package
passes from one department to another, or
from one hand to another, without count
and receipt recorded for preservation in
well bound book The counter, too, puts her
initials on the band of the package. There
fore, if a package or single sheet be lost it
can be traced to the very hand which received
it last, but failed to deliver it. package is
counted hirty-three times in passing through
the various operations. Not a dollar would
be delivered even to the Secretary of the Trea-
sury without his written order and receipt.
3. Any mistake or discrepancy is traced out
and rectifed the instant it becomes known. The
books are balanced every night. No operative
or superintendent is allowed to leave until all
the accounts are reported correct.
Last January, in the midst of a days work,
and without previous warning, the Secretary
ordered all operations stopped, to test the
accuracy of this system The accounts were
taken, just as they stood, and an inquest held
on the Bureau. On that day it contained over
| 500, 100000. Not only was the aggregate
found right, but the amount in each of the
three-score rooms agreed with the books to
the last cent.
Only the following instances of "missing"
have occurred from the beginning
In 1864 scrubbing woman stole sheet OF
$40 greenbacks from the plate-ptinting room.
The next day. Offering one on Pennsylvania
avenue, she was apprehended at once. But
the unfinished notes were not legally money,
so no charge could be maintained against her,
except that of stealing the trivial value OF the
paper on which they were printed.
Once $40 and afterwards 500 of fractional
currency were missed from the drying rooms.
| All the occupants were searched by commit
tees of their own number, but unsuccessfully.
So the losses were assessed upon them, and
two or three suspected persons discharged.
Forty dollars Of compOund-interest Trea-
sury notes disappeared from the sealing divi-
sion. Dilgent search proving fruitless, the
employees paid for it, and concluded that it had
been caught in the machinery and cut to
pieces. But no other sheet of that number
has been issued, so if there was theft it will
one day appear, when the notes return.
Two hundred sheets of 25-cent stamps,
amounting to $780, could not be found.
Through the negligence of a superintendent in
not reporting the loss promptly, it was impOs-
sible to trace it. But few weeks later it ap-
peared that one of the girls was spending
money in sums suspiciously large-not for