Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-01

Much of the money received, particu-
larly from the Germans, was specie,
and the risk and inconvenience
of carrying it to his office and thence to
bank was also very great. The paper money
was easily handled when its true value
had once been ascertained, but under the
old State banking system the adjusting Of
paper values caused the agent endless
trouble and calculation.
FINANCES OF THE TIME.
"Bicknells Reporter" and "Bicknell's
Counterfeit Detector" were delivered at the
agency as fast as the bi-weekly mail could
carry them after they were issued from the
press, and were carefully consulted as to the
standing of the banks throughout the coun-
try. 1t is pleasant to remember that the
notes of the Bank of Pittsburg' were
always at par. But tho notes OF many other
banks fuctuated in value and could only be
accepted in payment, less the discount
quoted by Bicknell. 1t was hard to make
the foreigners understand this, especially
when they had had the notes passed upon
them at par by sharp drovers or peddlers.
Several attempts to break into Mr..
Gaskell's office convinced him that the
large sums of money which accumulated,
supposedly in the safe in his office, but
really in trunk in his bedroom, made the
situation of his family unsafe. During that
winter the amount was so great that he did
not think it prudent to delay its deposit un-
til his usual spring trip to Philadelphia,
whittier he always went in April to attend
the Yearly Meeting OF Orthodox Friends.
to visit his widowed mother and to settle in
person his accounts with the Holland Com
pany. He kept separate account with
Nathaniel Holmes, of Pittsburg, grand
father of the present generation OF bankers.
There was no telegraph at that time and the
mails were very slow, so payments of large
sums by draft was not common. The bulk
of the money was, therefore, placed to the
credit of the company in the old United
States Bank, in Philadelphia.
There had been an unusual fall of snow.
even for that region, where there
was sometimes sleighing for three
weeks at a stretch. So he de-
termlned to make venture. Discarding
his fine Boston sleigh, the strings of sonor-
GUS bells and the robe OF wolf skins that
were familiar to everybody in the four coun-
ties, he, with the help of Isaiah, his loyaI
man Friday, built rude jumper or cutter.
The outlay was just 80 cents TOR the iron on
the runners. The bed of it was large. un-
painted drYgoods box, sloDed down in front
and the ropes some Old country coverlets.
HIS UNIQUE OUTFIT.
Carefully packing silver coin to the
amount o. So, 600, in window glass box he
nailed it up, placed it in the cutter and
built the seat over it. The gold and paner
money he carried in his saddle bags and
about his person. Isaiah patched up an old
harness with ropes, and instead of his mast
er's favorite dappIed gray 'Darbey," put
to this unique product of American and
Scotch-Irish genius, farm horse, built
somewhat in the gothic style, but good
roadster. The agents prim Quaker suit
and immaculate linen were hidden beneath
a shabby surtout and over this he wore a
heavy travelling cloak, with the tall, stiff
collar pulled we'll up over the earlaps of his
beaver skin cap. In this outfit be started
over the mountains to Philadelphia.
He was too well-known to venture, even
in this disguise, over the National or the
Chambersburg pike, so he went by way of
Phillipsburg and Bellefonte. The land
lords and hostlers of the wayside taverns
where he stopped were civil but not obse-
quious when he handed them the old
coverlets to carry into the house. He
carried the saddle bags himself, lest their
weight should indicate that they held some
thing more valuable than shabby clothes.
The cutter with the 5000 nailed up in the
seat stood outside every night on the way.
s. LATIMER.