Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-04-09
The Arod.llreenhnck DESTROYER.

The Agods6reenbnCk Destroyer
EVERY afternoon at four o'clock sew
enty-fve female scrubbers and sweep
ers are let loose on the halls and rooms
of the Treasury building. Prior TO this
charge of the broom brigade they are
massed in one of the lower halls with
their brooms, buckets, brushes, squil-
gees and swabs. They are Of many
colors and nationalities. Their pay is
fifteen dollars per month"; and OCCASION
ally among them may be found women
who once came to Washington in quest
of positions more lucrative. But bread
is as pressing necessity in Washing
ton as elsewhere, and scrubbing is better
than starvation.
In company with the matron. Mrs.
Scidmore, / reviewed the broom brig
ade the other day in the basement after
the hours allotted to Treasury visitors.
Seventy-ive busters and sweepers seem
an imposing number, but when scat
tered about the halls of the vast build
| ing at their work their are few and far
between. The waste paper collected is
sorted and placed in three bins, for there
are grades even in waste paper. Going
to the top floor found myself in lanes,
passages, highways and byways of
| Treasury accounts, ledgers, records,
BIG books, little books and millions of
! packages in millions of pigeon holes,
| all red taped and tagged. It's fright
| full TO contemplate this avalanche of
| financial reckoning from all the States,
embracing Custom-House, Army and
Navy affairs, and all other business
since our Government saw the light.
There isn't room for it. Piles of ac-
counts and well-worn ledgers cucumber
the landings and Railways. From the
Treasury garret was taken once more
to the Treasury cellar, Here are the
carpenters and blacksmiths' shops, for
the Treasury makes all its own desks
and pigeon holes, and paints and var
nishes them. But the chief anxiety
was to show me the macerator." "
The macerator was at work. The
macerator is the mill wherein is
ground to a soft, nasty pulp the called
in and condemned greenbacks. 1t
grinds to utter paste and impossi-
bility of recognition from 100000 to
S5O0,OOO daily. 1t has a ten-horse
power engine all to itself, and grinds
about two hours daily. The money
goes into huge, round cauldron-like
, hopper into which open three small
dials secured by three separate locks.
The obsequies of the condemned green.
backs are daily observed with a rigid
and precise formality. Three separate
: United States Treasury officials, men of
, known trust, probity and honor, high
, ly respected by all who know them,"
carry the condemned bills to the sacri-
! fetal hopper, unlock the sacred doors,
oI,ralr fbop, ~, 1,clr floV,n nm aud pa1.n-
, fully watch each other to see that none
of this Government paper sticks to their
clothing or to the tar on their heels.
Then hot water is let on, and the cogs
, of the Government coffee-mill rend the
3 tens, hundreds and thousand dollar
3 notes to atoms. You may look through
a little window in the top of the hop
per and see this process of liquidation
> going on. The engineer scooped up a
{ handful of the ground-up currency
= from a mass and put it near my nose
r. and eyes for inspection. 1t is a nasty
T. muck. Yet, since it has been money,
one gazes at it with grief, curiosity and
even respect. The Washington people
4 get hold of this financial filth devel-
e Oped from rags, which, after circula-
a tion of years in greasy pockets and
It pocket-books, passing from dirty hands
/ to dirtier, from den to dive, from dis
: ease-iniected clothing, hospitals and
h dead mems clothes, until it returns to
# its birthplace, whence once it started
d so crisp and clean, laden with every
n variety of infection, disease, small ,poX,
a yellow-fever, the plague, the itch,
It scrofula, consumption, battle, murder
# sudden and slow death; they take this
ground-up filth, mold it into statuettesr
q heads of Washington, Franklin, Jeffer
e son, or into the semblance of bird and
e animal, and keep these as household
e deities, to be reverenced, since they are
e made of money Washington Cor. N
q Y. Graphic.