The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-12-21


! tact with sharpers and men of little
principle, he watched me eagerly, no
ticed, and sent an employee TO the window
to look at the peculiarly mottled appear
snce of the sky.
One of the best experts on bills and
| silver counterfeits in the country, no
doubt, has his little cage in the cashiers
Office. He cannot always explain why
he does not like bill or n silver piece,
but be knows he does not choose any of
it, and a test shows that he is correct.
Long after had left this department Col.
Jones showed me so bill, and asked
me if | saw anything peculiar about it.
said no, did not, aside from the fact
that SEQ bill always did have q novel
appearance TO me.
WELL" said he, chat is a counter
felt. 1t was detected just after you
went OUT
convinced him after while that /
did not do it, though.
The bill had been dimly photographed,
and then all the work, back and front,
carefully done over with pen. 1t was
pretty good looking bill. Mr.. Urban
detected it while nervous person would
be engaged in calculating the words
Jack Robinson. Mr.. Urban is one Of
the men who holds his Office by right of
eternal fitness, and nobody ever vent
ures to ask him what his politics may
be or used TO be. 1t is a secret between
him and high heaven. That is the way
it should be.
If man could make himself absolute
" necessary to his employer or his gov
eminent, and then remain there at his
post instead of having to go out for
three months every year to yell for his
party till the rich, ripe rum mantled to
his luscious bugle, there would be a net
saving to the world in 200 years that
would buy some man a nice little farm.
The cashiers Office has a system of
three checks, whereby the counter, the
bookkeeper and the teller are guarding
against each others mistakes, and so ac-
curate is this matter that in a days
work ranging from 500, 900 to 81 500, 900
the footings of the three are alike to
cent.
The certified check, in the ordinary
sense of the term, does not 90 at the
custom house. The bank may be ever so
good; its certificate must be to the effect
that so much money is on deposit to its
credit at the sub-treasury, and when
that account is overdrawn. if only for five
cents, that check waits till the account
is made good again.
When you pay duties the fact that you
are the president of bank or the head
of family does not count. Ready
money or the certificate of the sub-treas-
ury alone goes.
In one corner of the cashiers depart
ment is a headsmans block, near it
stellated punch and sledge hammer.
When a coin is found to be worthless it
is carefully laid on this block, the pink
ing iron is placed upon it and then
strong man hits it a welt with the
sledge.
After knocking the essential tar out
of the coin, as one may say, it is politely
returned to the owner. who has TO make
it good. The idea, as the bright eyed
reader has already discovered, no doubt,
is to prevent its circulation, and that is
almost invariably the result.
Civil service has its odd and rather
amusing features TO one, at least. who
sees the ridiculous readily. For in
stance, there is a position under the
government in the customs which re-
quires that man who fills it shall, to
the best of his ability, knock off the lids
Of boxes by means Of cold chisel and
hammer.
The knowledge of Euclid or the binor-
NAL theorem is not absolutely necessary.
the principal thing being to avoid pull
ing out the thumb nail while pulling the
other nails But the civil service re-
quires that he shall know certain things,
whether he can knock off the lid of the
box or not One of these men has TO
stand upon a set Of cyclopedias in order
to reach the top Of a big box.
In the language of friend, che is up
on books, but he is short on stature"
The civil service does not ask him how
tall he is. but whether given line, b.
secting the base of an isOsceles triangle
and running due east toward given
point, viii also bisect the circumference
Of given circle whose radius is perpen-
dicular TO the base of the isosceles tri-
angle.
Take also the case Of man whose
duty it is to pack end unpack valuable
bric-a-brac. Those who have put in a
year or two packing and unpacking
without breakage costly china, marble,
glass and other truck will agree with
me that this is extremely important, al
though a civil service examination does
not touch the question. OF course 1t is
well for a man who drives a team for