Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1883-05-17
HOW PAPER MONEY Is MADE.

HOW PAPER MONEY IS MADE.
NIX DEAR Young FRIEND:-I have
said to myself, over and over again, to-
| day, that must write you and tell you
about something which has interested
me very much, and which am sure
will interest you. You will open your
eyes little, perhaps, when I tell you
it is about how money is made; but 1
don't mean by that quite what your
papa and business men mean when they
talk about making money. What I
really want to tell you is about the
place where the handsome dollar and five
dollar and ten-dollar bills are printed,
and something about how it is done.
Yesterday l went through the i'm
mense building, which is a block in
length, and is called the Treasury De-
partment. 1t is owned by the United
States. Here all the paper money is
made for all the banks in the country
every dollar of United States money
A guide showed me through the i'm
mense building, and 1 had an oppor-
tunity of seeing pretty much the whole
process of making paper money. How
much do you suppose is made thus in a
day? won't bother you with any fig
ures, but if you could have as much as
is made there in half an hour, you
could live comsortably on it all your
life, / venture TO say. Almost a million
of dollars of old, worn-out money is
counted and destroyed. there daily.
Count thousand, see how long that
takes; then count eight hundred
times as many, and You will get at
about the number of dollars of worn-out
money destroyed every day. OF course
new bills are printed to supply the
place of those worn out and destroyed.
When they are destroyed they are
first counted by several persons, SO that
there can be no mistake, and the
amounts marked. The money is then
placed in a large receiver of iron which
is nearly the shape of two tin pans with
the edges shut together, only very much
larger-siX or seven feet in diameter.
To this iron receiver there is a door
which is locked with three locks, each
lock requiring different kind of key.
Three men, who are appointed in ac-
cordance with law to witness the de-
struction of this money. have each one
of the keys to this door. No one of the
men can lend his key to either of the
others or to any other person. So you
see the door can't be opened without
all three of the men are present. Now
at the proper time of day these three
men get together and each one takes his
key and they unlock the three locks of
the door, which is then opened. All
this old money-so many hundreds of
thousands of dollars-is then carefully
placed in the receiver, the door is closed
and the three men securely lock it.
Y IL Ia a. I
a machine inside beats and grinds all
these hundreds of thousands of dollars
into the finest pulp. When it is suili-
GENTLY ground it is taken out and used
to make paper of. No one would sup
pose the wet pulp that comes out of the
receiver had been money only an hour
or two before.
A box stood near with perhaps six or
eight bushels of pulp in it, which, was
told, was the amount destroyed the day
before. You will notice the exceeding
care which is taken in counting the
money to be destroyed and in its de-
struction, so that none of the money in
tended to be destroyed shall be stolen
or lost, and so again 60 into use as
money.
Everything in regard to making the
1IiohCy Appeals W Will
the same care, so that it is hardly pos
sible for one person to be dishonest, or
even to make mistake, without the
dishonesty or mistake being discovered.
AS | said before, new bills are printed
to take the place of those destroyed,
and also to supply money required to
be used in the country. 1t would have
been very interesting to you to have
hn
look very carefully indeed at new bill,
you will notice that it is made of pc
culiar kind of paper-very different
papa writes on. 1t is very tough. Per-
3aps papa can show you one other
popularity which is very singular.
Take new bill and you will find in the
paper itself something that looks like
fine kind of hair running through each
bill in one particular place. Now, that
paper is made just so in order that no
one may be able to counterfeit the bills,
for the Government takes care that no
one shall ever get even a sheet of that
paper. So if bill hasn't got those
hairs running through it in a particular
place, we know at once it is worthless,
or. as we call it, counterfeit bill.
This. paper is first made in large
sheets, and every sheet that comes in
to be printed is carefully counted, SO
that if a single sheet were stolen or lost
the theft or loss would be promptly de-
tected. When the paper comes in, in
great packages of these large sheets,
each sheet is carefully moistened SO that
it viii take up the ink properly, and is
then placed under a press, when die
or stamp Of the most perfect workman
ship makes an impression, OF one color
only. on one side. When it becomes
dry it is moistened again, and is again
placed under a press, and another i'm
preston of another color is made, and
this process is repeated many times, till
ali the colors of both sides have been
IMPRESSED. This printing is done in