Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-10-07
FORESTER.
SATURDAY. OCTOBER =, 1871.

ON Monday last, the international postal mon
ev order system, under the convention recently
negotiated between Great Britain and this coun-
try, went into operation. By its means fifty
dollars or any less sum may be transmitted
from any money-order Office in this country to
any person in Great Britain or Ireland, or from
an Office there to any person in the United
States. The cost of transmission is, for ten dol
lars or less, twenty-five cents, aud twenty-five
cents more for each additiona; ten dollars. No
other currency than United States notes, or the
notes of national banks, will be received or paid
at the offices in the United States, and the pound
sterling of Great Britain will be reckoned
equivalent to S4.S6 in American gold As
the premium on gold changes from
day to day, postmasters are instructed not to
undertake to decide upon the actual gold value
of the remittance, but may, if they please, in
form the sender about what it will amount TO.
All that the order promises is to pay to the re-
ceiver in Great Britain the gold value of postal
order issued for certain amount in currency,
or to pay to the recipient in the United States
the currency value Of a British order represent
ING certain amount in gold The system will
prove a great convenience to many persons who |
desire to remit small sums from one country to |
the other; but the charges seem needeSsly high, |
The famous, Slow but sure committee of sew
enty have been getting the furniture, carpets
and cabinet work in the New York court house
appraised by competent experts, so as to ascer-
tain, as nearly as might be, the amount of the
swindles involved in furnishing that costly
building. 1t has been palpable all along that
the frauds were enormous, or, as Mayor Hall |
politely expressed it, the sums paid out for this
purpose were "large, perhaps exorbitant;"
bat nobody could tell whether they were five |
or fifty times as great as they should have been.
The appraiser Of carpets, who has been pur-
chaser and salesman of carpets and carpetings
in the employment OLA. I. Stewart for eighteen
years, and of course knows his business
thoroughly says that, fixing the values at an
exceedingly liberal amount" the value, when
new, of all the carpets, oilcloths, ETC., in the
court house could not exceed $4,000. For
these carpets, etc.. the controllers accounts
show that the city paid about S350,00O, or say
thirty times their value. The furniture
and cabinet makers did not steal quite so
boldly. The cabinet work, literally estimated, |
at price for which an experienced man in that
business would be glad to supply all of it, and,
with % per cent added, is sworn to be worth |
S132, S75, and the furniture, valued on the same |
liberal scale, should have cost not more than
S97 800. For these the sums charged were one
million and million and half dollars, re-
spectivcly, about seven times as much as they
were worth in one case, and fourteen times as
much in the other. The furniture in the armo-
ries has also been valued, but the result has not
been published. 1t is stated on the authority
of members of the committee, that complete
legal evidence, which cannot be controyerted,
sufficient for the arrest and conviction of Tweed,
is now in the hands of the committee and that
il will be used Immediately.