The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-08-01
From the Philadelphia Times.
Dollars by Mail.

pOrUaUlOn OF 1US own money Dy Une
government is discussed the more im-
portant it becomes. Facts are coming
out constantly which go to show that
there is not bigger abuse in the gov
erriment than the amount annually
paid express companies for carrying
money from point to point rs it may
be needed. One of the highest officers
in the Treasury Department has said
that during the past ten or more years
the government had paid to express
companies alone, for tfansportating it's
gold, silver and currency, from half
million to million dollars a year. In
the old days of the Printing Bureau,
when a portion of the work on the
bonds and currency was done in New
York, the express companies would
receive an immense percentage on the
sums carried, even though the bonds
and currency were only printed ON one
side, and therefore valueless. 1t is said
that the express companies few years
ago, finding that the revenue stamps
which they also carried for percent
age, were too bulky to make the trans
portation of them profitable, had a
clause inserted in q bill and passed
both houses requiring stamps to be
sent through the mails. A thousand
dollars in gold weighs four pounds,
and there is no reason why gold and
paper money might not go as well by
mail as by express at an immense cost.
Friends of the express companies say
would be in the companies hands, but
it is hard to see why the government
cannot transport its money as well as
an express company. The Secretary
of the Treasury, under section 3,64O of
the revised statutes, has the discretion
of sending the money in any safe man.
ner he deems best. Should he then
order the Treasurer to send it through
the mails the latter would be obliged
to comply, but the express men say
the Treasurer's bondsmen would then
be responsible for the money in case
of any loss by robbery or otherwise,
whereas the express company makes
good all losses. Since the new move-
ment in silver began orders for more
than million dollars have been re-
ceived at the treasury from the various
banks designated as repositories. 1t is
found that gold is accumulating very
fast in San Francisco, there being now
there between $4,000, 900 and 81, 900, 900
in the mint and sub-treasury. Mer-
chants and business men take their
gold to the sub-treasury, receive silver
for it, then deposit the silver dollars
and receive silver certificates for them,
which latter they send East to pay
customs dues or other Indebtedness,
and thus save the large cost of trans
portation of gold three thousand
miles. Thus this expense is trans
ferred from the individual to the gov.
ernment. This is state Of things not
contemplated by the silver men in
Congress.
Mixed Babies.
From the Waco Crexas) Register.
Some time ago there was a dancing
party given in a certain neigh5or.
hood in Texas, and most of the ladies
present had little babies, whose noisy
perversity required too much atten.
ton to permit the mothers to enjoy
| the dance. A number Of gallant
| young men volunteered to mind the
young ones while the parents INDUCED
in an old Virginia breakdown. NJ
sooner had the women left the babies
in charge of the mischievous devils
than they striped the babies, changed
their clothes, giving the apparel of on
to another. The dance over, it wa
time to go home, and the mothers hur
riedly took each a baby in the dress O
her own and started, some to thei
homes, ten or fifteen miles off, an
were far on their way before daylight
But the day following there was tr'
mendous row in the settlement. Motl
ers discovered that a single night ha
changed the sex of their babies, Obsel
walton disclosed physical phenomena
and then commenced the tallest femal
pedestrianism. Living miles apart,
required two or three days to unmi
the babies, and as many months to r.
store the mothers to their natur,
sweet dispositions. TO this day it
unsafe for any of the baby mixers
venture into the neighborhood.