Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-05
THE CITY COUPONS.
THE METHODS AND MARKS OF
CANCELLATION.
Result of Judge Beatty's Examina-
ton into the. Question of
Their Twice Payment.

EDS. REcoRD-UNIoN Some eight or ten
| days since. when my attention was called
to the punched holes in the Sacramento
city coupons which I bad not before
noticed, stated that | would, when the
weather was fair, examine these punches
and let the result of my examination be
known. Since then there hes been but
little fair weather except on Sunday and
New Years day. | have had other bust
ness 10 attend to part of the time, and had
but few hours 10 examine the coupon
book. | have devoted more time to exam.
| ing the Auditors old books, which l could
attend to either on cloudy or clear day |
propose to give some of the results of nv
| examination:
First-The Auditors books of 1860 and
1861 show that all the coupons that fell
due in those two years, amounting to about
10000, were paid before the end of 1861,
except l, 42S. The books do not show how
many of these ,42S coupons belonged to
| go and how many to 81 coupons How
ever, the total amount was very small, and
doubtless most of that was paid during
direct and positive proof from the Auditors
books of fact / tried to prove, by indirect
| and circumstaDtial evidence, in my inter
view with the RECORD UNION reporter-to
wit: that the coupons of 1860 were SUBJ
stantially all, or nearly all, paid soon after
| they fell due.
Second-I repeat here that of the cou
pons of 1861, which were all or nearly all
paid soon after they were due more than
1900 are not now in the coupon books
where they should be that they are to that
extent lost, misiaid or purloined, and not
! now to be found
Third-A little over 1900 of the $S5. 800
of coupons which fell due in 1861 are at
this time cancelled and pasted in the cou-
pom books.
Fourth-My inference from these facts
was that the coupons of 1861 were proba.
bly, all lost, or purloined from the proper
| custodian of the same, at one time, and these
1900 since brought in little by little, SO as
not to excite suspicion, and again paid by
the several Treasurers who have held the
office since they were purloined. And
will here explained why then thought so :
1t is 10 be presumed that the coupons of
different years were kept IN separate pack
ages. No business man of ordinary CON-
mon sense would throw all the coupons of
different years into one common mass. If
each years coupons were kept separately,
then, of course, they must be kept in one
or more packages. Ali the coupons of 1861
would have gone into common letter en-
velope. They would all go into an en-
velope by inches "a very common size
used about offices), without at all swelling
the envelope to an unusual thickness. The
reasonable presumption then is that each
years coupons were either in an envelope
or box, and therefore difficult to lose part
without losing the whole. If on the other
hand, all the coupons were mixed up to-
gether, then it would be impossible to lose
$4,000 of the 1861 coupons and not lose
any others. This, however, as / stated at
the time, was but conjecture. But, never
theless. very reasonable conjecture.
Since then l have discovered some
further evidence tending strongly to con-
firm my theory about the loss and second
payment of the 1861 coupons. In my short
examination of the coupon book last week
all the coupons pasted therein had small
holes punched in them before FASTING in
the book. These holes were Of various
kinds: some quite small, some a little
larger, some round, some kidney shaped,
some were crosses and some were stars
Some coupons had one hole punched in
them, some six or eight.
Whilst waiting fair day to examine the
coupon book l tried to ascertain the date
when the different punches were intro
duced. l learned from Mr.. Mckee that
the cross stamp was purchased in the early
part of the year 1886, and the star punch
the 18th day of June 1877. This latter
date was fixed by Huntington, Hop
kins & Co.'s bill for the punch.
In the subsequent examination of the
coupon book / found that the star punch
seemed to be the only punch used on cou-
pons of 1860 and 1861. On the coupons of
1862 some had star punches, some round
punches and some had both round and star
punches. Of the 1868 coupons, l found
only one or two with the star punch.
Among the coupons of 1864 and 1865 did
not find a single star punch. Then, the
1860 and 1861 coupons being all punched
with punch that was not bought or used
by the city until June II, 1877, / con-
cluded that they were all paid and can
celled after June II. 1877; and as they
had already been paid in 1860 and 1861,
the conclusion was inevitable that they
had been paid twice.
But wishing to get at the bottom of the
matter, and SO there should be no mistake,
| applied to Mr.. Porter and Mr. Mckee, to
see if they would explain this apparent ev-
idence of double payment. Mr.. Porter first
explained that Hickman, before FASTING
these coupons in the coupon book. punched
them with the star punch, to make their
cancellation more perfect. Mr.. Mckee, af-
ter number of conversations on the sub
Ject, seemed to concur with Mr.. Porter in
his views of this matter. But l called Mr..
Porter's attention to the fact that Mr.. Hick-
man did not use the star punch on the cou-
pons of 1853, 1864 and 1865. His theory
about that was that 1860 and 1861 coupons
had not been cancelled when paid, and
consequently Hickman thought it better to
cancel them before FASTING in the book.
But that the later coupons having been
cancelled as paid, it was not necessary to
cancel them with the star stamp. This
seemed to me a reasonable explanation of
the cancelling, and at least required further
examination to rebut this hypothesis.
examined then into the appointment of
Hickman to do this FASTING of coupons.
found an order was made in September.
1876, directing the Auditor and Treasurer
Porter to buy the coupons books to paste
in the city and water-works coupons. In
October the books were delivered to the
city, the bill presented and paid. In De-
cember. 1877, more than a year after the
purchase of the books, the final account of
Hickman, for FASTING the coupons, was al
lowed.
These star-punched coupons appear on
the first page of the first volume of the
coupon books. OF course thew were
punched before they were pasted in the
book. If they had been punched after past
ing, the book as well as the coupon would
show the punched hole Then if Hick-