, 1889-09-19
GOOD BILLS FOR SCRAPS.
NOVEL WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT
REDEMPTION BUREAU.

When a small portion Of a United States
note is returned to the treasury with
sufficient proof that the remainder of il
has gone out of existence, the treasury
will give the full value of the original
note. Naturally the greatest destruction
Of money is wrought by fire, and bits OF
bills with charred edges are constantly
coming in for redemption.
But several instances have occurred
where men, in their desperation at Their
loss have simply boxed up a lot of ashes,
in which there was not the slightest
trace of the original material, and de,
manded hundreds and thousands of dol
lars for them. Such requests are, OF
course, refused, and the senders are in
formed that their only recourse is to ask
congress by special act to indemnify
them.
! MICE WITH EXPENSIVE NESTS.
Next to fire the young baby is put
down in the department as the most de-
structive agent. Innumerable affidavit1
arc received in which John Jones, OF
whatev er his name may be, being duly
sworn, deposes and says" that his in
fant son did chew up and swallow the
missing portions of certain s. bills. and
that the said missing portions were
thereby wholly destroyed and are now
no longer in existence.
! The fashion of keeping small pet dogs
! has also been the cause of many solemn
/ affidavits being sent to the department
! Your pug and your poodle seem to take
especial delight in masticating the fruit
and reward of the many days of severe
! toll of the head of the house.
! The fancy of mice for $40 bills as lin
ing for luxurious nests has been impress
ed upon the redemption bureau by a long
! series of examples. Only 4 few days
| ago several hundred dollars worth of
| nest lining was redeemed for q southern
man who had for many years given up
! all idea of finding his missing treasure.
There was 500 of it in the first place,
notes of almost the first issue made by
the government early in war times 1t
had been hidden away i'll place sup
posed to be secure, and had disappeared
a quarter of century later, in repair
ing the porch of the old house, the nest
of the wealthy mouse had been discov-
cred, and enough of the fragments re-
covered to secure moro than half of the
original deposit.
Also from the south came most of the
moldy, worm eaten bills which have
been hidden in bottles or buried in the
earth for years. There are not so many
| savings banks in the south as in thrifty
New England, and hiding places are
used.
But tho habit of using the parlor OF
kitchen stove as q 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,
Der of the family who is all unaware OF
its value. Years ago the clerks in the re-
demption bureau ceased to deciaim upon
the stupidity of such people. 1t has be-
come 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 THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE.
There are not many attempts to de-
fraud the government through the re-
demption bureau and none have been
successful. The sending of the two halves
of note of largo denomination by diff
ferent people, each one swearing that
the other half is destroyed, and asking
for the full value 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, mutilated, probably
by design, with requests for its redemp-
10 al i'm cfo
counterfeit" and returned to the sender.
Tho redemption bureau is not good
place for showing the queer" even in q
fragmentary condition.
There is in the treasury vault q brown
wooden box eighteen inches long, n foot
wide and eight inches deep, which con.
tains paper money of the nominal value
| Of several hundred thousand dollars. II
is not worth dollar. Tho 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
arc 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-.
BILE of it redeemed. Occasionally he
found descendants OF these old bank Of
ficials, 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 S54 600 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 1t was sent could be found by
! the poStotfice department, nor could Mr.
| Whelpley find any trace of them or their
descendants The $4,000 package Wa5
| sent from Brandon, Hiss, to jackson,
Miss, in 1910, and the letter accompany
Ing it shows that it was sent in conse-
! quence of repeated demands. The most
diigent search fails to discover the
! buSuteSt trace OI any Sucn 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
iority of those in the box.-Washington
( Post
IL Is proposed, by new company lust
formed in Brussels, to build railroad to
connect the head of navigation on tho
lower Congo with Stanley Pool, thus
opening up a line of about 1000 miles in
the interior of Africa to trade and COM