Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1882-02-23
FIAT mOxEY-.FrAr RABHIT
Rags Turned TO Currency Then
80 FaRcifuI Nothings.

The papers have had much to say
about fat money, or arbitrary curren-
cy. This means made money or
stamped money. That is the govern.
ment stamps a value and a promise to
pay or to receive in payment of dues,
on a piece of paper or even metal and
it becomes money. The intrinsic value
Of a small bale of paper made from
linen rags may not be more than a few
dollars, but when printed and stamped
it may represent millions, which will
buy houses, lands, ships, stocks, rail-
roads and legislatures, railroad tick
cts, carriages and horses, diamonds,
statuary pictures, dress and bric.a brac,
te~mbstones, s~ilverplated cofins and
handsome ~eulogies and epitaphs,
in fact all the things that men seek
in the mad race Of life that may
be purchased. The once abused and
suspected greenbacks are now as good
as gold nearly all over this vast con-
%tinent, and are certainly preferable in
any large amounts 10 silver. In the
wear and tear of circulation much of
this currency which people fight for
and die for, sigh for and lie for, be-
comes all tattered and torn until often
it looks but little better than the orig.
inal rags from which it was made.
Such defaced money is redeemed at
the treasury when presented. Some
years ago it was the custom to burn
the mutilated currency. A powerful
furnace was constructed for the pur-
pose, and when enough Of the blurred,
greasy, sick looking old paper money
was collected, a solemn c~onclave OF
government officials deubly saddened
at the thought that there was to be no
resurrection for greenbacks, as.
sembled to witness the cremation
of the once valuable pile.
1t is said that no Hindoo widow ever
assembled the log heap constructed to
burn her dead husband with more
deliberate and mournful delay than
some of these same officials went
about their work,
But of late years the furnace has
been discontinued, perhaps sold to
some sentimental believer in the Gre
nation of mortal remains. The gov
eminent now disposes of mutilated
currency by reducing it to something
like the original paper pulp and then
pressing it by powerful machinery
into different fanciful shaped objects.
These are disposed ofso as to add to the
revenues Of the government. Some
specimens are to be seen in a show
case at 2734 Main street. Mr..
Eugene Leidy, the proprietor, having
a taste for the novel and gro
tesque, if not the aesthetic in art, has
secured two of these little monuments
to the memory of departed greenbacks.
One represents an old castle-perhaps
it is a tower only from Blarney Castle.
1t represents fifty thousand dollars of
greenbaeks in the concrete form, and
is about one foot high. The compan-
ion piece is in the form of a half
grown rabbit, and it is marked '$25,-
000." Where all this money circu-
lated, whose hands it passed through,
from millionaire to wayside tramp,
from jewelled beauties fingers to
brawny washerwomen's, from deacon's
hat in church to barroom's midnight
box, only imagination can tell. 1t is a
mere clod, now worth no more than so
much clay, or plaster of paris. That
which had a life, power andinfuence in
the affairs of mankind, is now no more
than the dust found in the bottom of
a coffin. 1t served its mission, and
has been resolved back into its origi-
nal value and nothirgness.