Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1880-07-24
THE MINT.


upon the Mint and bases its main accusation
upon the fact that the Mint assays dc not
agree with the assays of the Offices Oh the
Comsteck. Yesterday the APPEAL showed
how far the Comstock assays might be re-
lied upon and quoted the following instance
"Within the past week one bar sent from
the assay Office in question Wiegand's] fell
in value nearly $3.50 and the assayers in
Virginia acknow lodged that they were wrong
To this plain fact the Chronicle makes the
subjoined reply:
The above is untrue, inasmuch as 1t leaves
the impression that the mistake was DIS
covered at the Mint and corrected by the
officials. The facts are as fellows: Last Mon
day lot of bullion was assayed at Weigand S
Office, the owner waiting for it and compell-
ing the assayers to perform their work hur-
riedly. A mistake was made in figuring, and
the bar stamped about S42O too high. The
owner sold it to j. N. Douglas, who sent it
that afternoon to the Mint. few hours
afterward the assayers discovered their mis-
take and infermed Mr.. Douglas, and also
wrote to the man in Carson who had brought
them the bullion On Tuesday morning Mr..
Mills, the assayer at Wiegand's, went to Car
son, found the man and corrected the error
with him and them went to the Mint, where
the assayers were at work on the bar. They
had NOT discovered the error, and were not
aware that a mistake had been made until III
formed by Mr.. Mills, not having completed
their assay The mistake was corrected at
Mr. Mills request.
Now the above is plain admission that the
Weigand assay was wrong The bar had been
h,uriedly assayed and got to the Mint before
Weigand's assayer discovered his blunder.
Then there was rush made to the Mint to
see if the matter could not be fixed up be-
fore the Mint assayers discovered it. The
the Mint men had not yet discovered it, for
the very simple reason that they had not as
yet finished their assay. On several occasions
before, they had discovered errors in the Vir
ginia City assays, and in order to satisfy GER
tain parties, they were sent to San Francisco
to be verified. The fact that the San Fran
cisco assays always agreed with the Mint
assays, effectually settles the question Of the
competency of the Mint Assayer. Men 90 to
the Comstoek Offices, and when their bars are
"hurredy" handled and over assayed, they
consider themselves the victims of robbery
because the Mint fixes the true value of bars.
No complaints have ever been received frem
depOsitors of the Mint which have not been
satisfactorily settled, and when a complaint is
made through official channels, it always re-
ceives prompt attention. Whenever it does
not, the agrieved party can lay his complaint
before the Director of the Mint at Washing |
ton. The editor Of the Chronicle is hardly |
the party to sdjudicate these difficulties.
The paper is simply being used as the mouth
piece of parties who when there was no work
at the Mint, wrote to Washington and asked
to be paid for their idle time, given work, or
discharged. As there was no provision fer
back pay and no work at that time for them
to do, they were discharged. The Chronicle
states that the APPEAL has ignored the charges
of incompetency. We ignored nosuch charges
we disproved them. The writer in the U,o,.-
icle has fallen into an errsr common with
men not conversant with the making of coin,
in not knowing the difference between stand
ard silver and fine silver At this hour the
APPEAL has not the facts and figures at hand
TO refuse the fresh charges in last evenings
Chronicle, but will present them in the issue
D tomorrow morning