The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1889-05-03
1t Cuts A Wide Swath.
But tho habit Of using the par1or o,

But the habit Of using the par1or OK
kitchen stove as a safety deposit vault is
not confined to any one section of the
country. Neither is the custom of burn
ing up this treasure by some other men,
bcr OF the family who is all unaware of
its value. Years ago the clerks in the re-
demption bureau ceased to declaim upon
the stupidity of such people. 1t has be-
come q matter of course with them, and
they expect about so many letters every
week from people who have warmed two
pair of hands with 81 900 worth of silver
certificates.
FROM TIE DEAD LETTER OFFICE.
There are not many attempts to de-
fraud the government through the re-
demption bureau. and none have been
successful. descending of the two halves
of a note of large denomination by diff
ferent people, each one swearing that
the other half is destroyed. and asking
for the full valuo of the note, frequently
looks like an attempt to defraud, but the
officials think that in most cases the
senders believe they aretelling the truth.
Counterfeit money comes from every
part of the country, lnutilated, probably
by design, with requests for it's redemp-
ton. 1t is always indeibly stamped
"counterfeit" and returned to the sender.
The redemption bureau is not a good
place for showing the queer" even in
fragmentary condition.
There is in the treasury vault a brown
wooden box eighteen inches long, foot
wide and eight inches deep, which con.
tains paper money of tho nominal value
of several hundred thousand dollars. 1t
is not worth q dollar. The queer thing
about it is the manner in which it was
collected. Every bit of it came from the
dead letter office of the postoffice depart
ment. Some portion of it is counterfeit,
but the most of it was genuine money
many years ago The banks which is
sued it and the officers who signed it
are gone and forgotten. 1t was all sent
over to the treasury department some
years ago, and Assistant Treasurer
Whelpley undertook to trace up the
various banks and get as much as posi-
bic of it redeemed. Occasionally he
found descendants OF these old bank Of
fcials, themselves bankers, who were
willing to redeem some of the notes for
the sake Of the signatures of their
fathers, and in this way he succeeded in
getting several hundred dollars worth of
itredeemed.
But of that remaining, not bill can
be redeemed A little Of it is Con-
federate money, but most of it is of
banks, state and private, that went out
! of existence many years ago The Oldest
notes are dated back as far as 1912. One
package contained $4,000 and another
| $4,000. The mystery is how SO much
money could have been lost in the mail.
Neither the men who sent it nor the ones
to whom it was sent could be found by
the postoffice department, nor could Mr..
Whelpley find any trace of them OF their
descendants. The $4,000 package was
sent from Brandon, Miss, to jackson,
Miss, in 1910, and the letter accompany
ing it shows that it was sent in conse-
quence of repeated demands. The most
diligent search fails to discover the
slightest trace of any such banking COM
pany as that at Brandon, Miss, which
issued the notes, most of which are of
the 81 900 denomination. The notes are
handsomely executed, as are large ma
jority of those in the box.-Washingto
Post.