The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-12-03

Oh FEMININE Observation-Disclosures and
Pearls I'm Profusion-A Sleeping Cou-
pom Clipper.
Nearly all of the safety deposit COM
panies bid for the favor of the women by
maintaining handsome parlors reserved
for their use, with private rooms for ex-
aminations of securities and jewels, lava
tory, etc. The women are good custom
ers, too. In some of the vaults nearly
One-third of the renters are of the gentler
sex, and in one, where there are 5000
renters, 1000 of them are misses or mes
danes, 200 being married women who
keep their safes in their own names, sa-
cred from the fingers and eyes of their
Hegc lords. Women may not know much
about business, but that prudence which
Is so conspicuOusin the mental compost
ton of the sex finds expression In patron
age of the safety vaults. Here women
may keep their savings, absolutely fear
less of meddling by thriftless husbands.
Here they may also store old love letters
or love tokens, even newer ones, which
are too precious to be destroyed and too
sacred to be seen by the eyes of suspi-
cious husbands.
81 know women who keep old love let
tiers in their boxes" said the vault clerk
in one of the most popular companies.
"Of course it is no business of mine
what they keep in there, but have seen
'em take the letters out 50 often that it
has got to be an old story with me-"
"YOung wOmenS"
"An kinds, but principally middle
aged or old ones. Young women as rule
don't waste their time on chestnut loves,
you know, but with old 'uns it is differ
emit. have in mind now one woman
with a thin face and gray hair, the
mother of a large family, too, and with
a rich husband, who comes in here
every week and takes out yellow old
letter, goes into one of the private rooms,
stays there half an hour or an hour, and
comes out with red eyes. know another
who has to have look at an old tintype
about twice q week or else she couldn't be
happy. Sometimes she runs in and takes
a glance or two at it, and other times she
goes into private room and stays with
it ten or fifteen minutes. She cries, too
Why, there's women who rent boxes here
on purpose to keep such old things in
letters, photographs, locks of hair and SO
on. Why don't they keep 'em at homer
That's none of my business. You can
guess as well as can"
"Much jewelry in this vaultT'
"Jewelry? / should say so! About
three women out of four keep jewelry in
their safes. Some of it isn't worth much
old relics, family heirlooms and prec-
ious trinkets. Then there's some that
have really valuable jewels. There's
bushels of diamonds and pearls scattered
about in them boxes, sir. Funny thing
about women, too is that they are so
fond of coming in and looking their dia-
monds over. / know a woman who never
lets q week pass without taking her tin
box into one of the private rooms and
staying there an hour admiring her
jewelry."
CARELESS ABOUT vALUABLEs.
care people ever careless about their
valuables in here?''
"Bless you, yes. Some of our renters
we have to watch like hawks for fear
they'll leave something on the examina-
ton desk there when they put their boxes
away. l found lying on the desk one
day pile of government bonds that
would have made me rich. An old chap
had left them there. One night our
night Waterman found a man asleep in
one of the private rooms. He was about
to ring for the patrol and hustle the fell
low out when he discovered that the in
truder was one of our renters, an old man
who had fallen asleep while cutting cou-
pOns from a lot of bonds. On the desk
before him was an enormous pile of the
bonds.
The two parlors and their little private
rooms are all protected from intruders
by the big iron fence through whose gate
no one may pass save renters. But there
is still another department-the storage
room, where boxes and trunks are kept in
the same security from fire and robbery
as that afforded by the strong room.
Here are scores of big trunks and boxes
containing silver plate, silks, fine dresses,
relics, records, precious books and great
lot of stuff. A few churches store their
communion plate in these vaults, and peo-
pie going away for the summer, and hav-
ing fine clothes, furs or plate to leave be-
hind are good customers. The storage
charges on a common sized trunk are S. a
year, or 90 or % for summer. The
value of the contents counts for nothing
the rate is per 1000 cubic inches.
What kind of people use safe deposit
vaults? First of all, the thrifty middle
class, as one might say, meaning the well
to do people who are not quite rich. Most
capitalists have vaults of their own suffi-
GENTLY secure. Retired merchants and
capitalists are good customers. Many
lawyers send boxes for safe keeping of
precious documents or records intrusted
to them. Wealthy people living in the
suburbs or not far out in the country
find the vaults q great convenience, as
do executors, guardians, trustees, treas.
urers of lodges, societies and public insti-
tutions. Indeed, it would not be easy to
name an article of value that could not
be found in one of the many thousand
little safes of the seven safety deposit
companies in Chicago-abstracts deeds,
mortgages, contracts, powers of attor-
ney, insurance policies, collections of
coins, letters to be opened after the death
of the writer, collections of autographs,
patents-everything precious to man or
woman, even honor or reputation, lies
hidden and secure in these modern strong
Herald.