Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1873-04-11
Mutilated Notes i'm the Treasury De-
partment.

&
FARTHER on we come to the room de-
voted to the counting of the mutilated
money received by mall for, in addition
to the receipts by express, an average OF
one hundred packages is received each day
by mail. The money so received is IN
much worse condition than that which
comes by express, for the reason that cur
rency which is mutilated is redeemable
only by the Treasurer, and usually comes
in small amounts by mail; while the
various assistant treasurers, deposltarles
and depositary banks are agents for the
redemption of currency merely soiled and
defaced, which is forwarded by them to
the Treasurer by express. The money re-
ceived by mail comes in all sorts of DAM
aged conditions and has all imaginable
kinds of horrible or ludicrous histories.
Sometimes it has been swallowed by calf
or goat, which, finding pocket-book care
lessly left within its reach, proceeded to
regale itself with the salt which the leather
had absorbed from the perspiration, until
the book was forced open and the contents
exposed. The green notes had an inviting
and familiar appearance, and the confiding
animal eagerly swallowed them, and so
sealed his own death-warrant; for the
owner, returning and seeing the wreck of
the pocket-book, rightly conjectured
where his money had disappeared,
put the unwilling thief to death, and
recovered the halfdigested notes.
Others have been found ON the bodies of
drowned or murdered men, weeks
perchance after their death. Frequently
they have been so burned that moth
ing remains but the charred resemblance
of notes, so frail and brittle that a slight
touch will change them to cinders. Some
times note is sent which some drunken
fool, lord for the hour of untold riches, to
show his disregard for money, has used to
light his cigar, but which, upon the re-
turn of reason, he has fastened to
send to the Treasurer, with an humble and
penitent request that it be exchanged for a
new note with which to pay for food and
lodging. Or it may be that it is one
which termagant wife has thrown into
the fire to spite her hen-pecked mate, who
has rescued it before it was entirely de-
voured by the flames; or one that some
luxurious mouse has stolen from the
money-drawer and used to line his nest
Once poor Frenchman sent handful of
minute fragments of notes, with the state
ment that they had 'smet with the accident
of little dog" Our Fenian friends are
prone to put lighted pipes in the same
pocket in which they carry money. The
consequence is that the Treasurer re-
ceives for redemption great many green
backs with round holes burnt through
them here and there, and looking for all
the world like bullet-riddled ensigns of
the Irish Republic. Some stories are so
frequently repeated as to excite grave
doubts of their entire truthf1lness. For
instance, note which is so badly dam
aged as to call for a severe stretch of the
rules in order to make it worth anything,
is pretty sure to be said to belong to a
poor, hard working widow with an aston
fishing number of children, for whom the
writer, in the fullness of his charitable
heart, has forwarded it for redemption.
All these notes, so variously mutilated,
must be restored as nearly as may be to
their original shapes before their value can
be definitely ascertained. Here, again,
the skillful fingers of women are called
into requisition Some of the women en-
ployed in this work have, by long expert
ence, become exceedingly expert in pasting
and restoring notes. Fragments which
are so burned as to seem to others only
charred pieces of paper, or so minute as
to be almost indistinguishable, under their
patient hands again assume the semblance
of notes, so that their kinds and denomi-
nations can be readily distinguished.
Notes which have been nibbled by mice
into such tiny fragments that most
persons would say that it was beyond hui
man power to restore them to their origi-
nal shapes, are arranged and restored bit
by bit, until after perhaps labor of
days they begin to assume their former
forms, and at last are restored with suf-
ficient perfection to warrant their redemp
ton These ladies have made an art in
which they have no rivals. 1t would re-
quire years to educate others to the same
degree of skill and knowledge, and it
would be difficult to estimate the embar-
rassment which their loss would entail on
the Experimentation" A1o Hour Anooaa6
the G,een5acts," IN Scr5bner's for Aprt1