Omaha daily bee., 1883-02-22
IN SIGHT.
Uncle Sans Hoard OF Wealth In the
San Francisco Vaults.
San Francisco Gail.

solid, solid gold and silver; not the
6sment-so to speak-of the thriftless
visionary, but the tangible lucre that
makes men opulont, that makes ma.
tious powerful, that moves all that is
movable by human agencies 10 the
universe. There's millions in tin
me vault that underlies the sub-treas
ury bulldog. The doors are openeo;
the expectsnt visitor takes his hand
from oger his eys; he peers in, enters,
and Aladdin's cave is changed in the
otorc.room of q retail grist mill, He
sees nothing but a solid a of little
oauvas sacks piled from floor to
ceiling, homely az a grocery over
stocked with breadstutfs. This is
the principal vault, and each of these
little sacks contains LOCO silver dol
lars. There Ia no geld here. The
vault is thirty. six feoS long, seventeen
feet wide and eight and q half feet
high, yet 1t holds only 13, 600 000 Of
silver dollars. The gold vaults are
about as prosy, the money being sack
cd and packed In the same manner,
each sack containing 100000. 1t is
asked, Where does oil this money come
fcom2 The answer Is that the sub-
treasury--this mean, little, inadequate
building is the receptacle for the on
tire revenue of the government from
the Pacific coast west of the Rocky
Mountains; from British Columbia to
Mexico.
The busine 8 of last year amounted
Ia round numbers to $3s 900, 600.
Naturally It is asked, why is all this
money boarded instead Of being out
In circulation. P~aradoxical as 1t may
seem, q great deal Of it Is In circula.
ton. To all intonts aud purposes 1t
Ia passing from hand to hand every
day, doing Its part In the great game
Of financial sh .tlecook and battle
door. 1t lie represented by nilver and
| gold certificates form muct more
convenient for business pur poses,
while the coin Itself 10 stored in the
vaults, away from the d~epreciating Of
fects of abrasion and fromlos by other
cauees. A majority of the twenty
dollar gold piooes In circulation have
lost so much BY abrasion that thsy fall
below the standard weight. There are
In the s~ub-treasury over seven thous-
and half dollars that have become de-
preclated simply by ordinary abrasion
while In circulation. This deprecia-
ton sometimes amounts to as much as
twenty seven dollars on . thousand.
Gold being q softer metal suffers more
from the same treatment. Hence, for
this reason, and also because they save
time aud trouble In handling and are
more convenient to carry, gold GER
tlicAtes are fast growing in favor. Be-
sides there Is an advantage to the
government in Issuing silver and golt
certificates.
In receiving 80 many millions OF
dollars, it might be supposed that ar
occasional spurious coin or note woulC
find Its way ACROSS the counter s.
great Ia this danger that each piece an,
every note, has to pass under tn
scrutiny Of an expert. People do no
realize the quantity of counterfeit sil
yer dollars that are In circulation
Not a day passes that more or less ar
not offered at the sub. treasury. TIL
assistant treasurer speaking of tn
subject, said: "You would be SD,
plised at the ingenuity that is di
played in debaaing the different go
eminent coins. One of the neateJ
; methods employed by those who OIL
y gagged In this species of crime Is VIII
Is known as the splitting process
This is done by splitting the col
edgeways (probably by means of fir
saw, digging out the inside, fllir
the cavity with metal % nearly as pc
s sible, the weight Of the gold, take
g out, and soldering the two di
together again In such q manner tbs
1t will pass without suspicion anon
those who are not expert In detectin
: frauds of this kind. Fortunately tn
method of tampering with coin Ia g
difficult In It's successful accomplish
ment that 1t ID seldom resorted t.
and coins thus debased are not CON
mon. An expert ct the business ca
take five dollars worth of gold out c
q single twenty-dollar piece. A shor
time ago q 800 note was presented q
the counter. The receiving teller
o Immediately upon taking 1t into h
n hand, stamped the word "oountel
felt" upon Its face and handed 1t baol
The proceeding startled the perso
that presented 1t, and he asked til
teller, with an air of indignation, VIII
he did 1t.
. "Becsuso the law compels me to d
, It," the teller replied.
The mar insisted that the note wa
good, ''but," said he, 'if 1t Is nc
good I could have taken it back t
the person I got 1t FROM"
"You can do that STILL" said tn
teller, "And if he demonstrates that l
Is a good note, you have only to com
here and get your money" The ma,
did not come back.
Spurious silver coins are detecte
mere by their weight and general az
pearanoe than by anything alse. Sal
the assistant treasurer speaking {
this: "They have got us on the rim
/. Of the metal. They can make thei
base metal to ring a. we'll as our
The detection of spurious gold coin
purely mechanically ringing. acids
weight, the eye, etc. Experience
everything" said Mr.. Spsulding, 60.
base coin has never been passed o
US, but we have stopped lots of thei
on the way. To become expert In d.
tecting the base coin, men have got t
make 1t q business, q study