Griggs courier., 1891-03-20
THEFTs FROM GOLD conn.,
How Uncle Sam Has Been Robbed BY In.
eenious Italians and Poles.

How Uncle Sam Has Been Robbed BY In.
genious Italians and Poles.
The United States sub-treasury off,
cials Of this city arc greatly annoyed at
present by the amount of light weight
gold coin that is coming into their cof-
fers. The gold is all short in value, and
though there is no apparent difference in
the size of the various pieces or their
weight to the Impractical observer,
many of them have been reduced one
third Of their value.
the officials do not hesitate to accuse
persons Of robbing the government by
reducing the weight of the coin, and the
government has even gone so far as to
take steps to stop the robbery. Assistant
Treasurer Roberts said that many of the
SIS gold pieces were fifty cents short, and
some of the $40 pieces We're worth only
$0.25. The 81 coins did not suffer much,
because it would hardly pay to bother
with them.
In every case that his attention had
been called to the face of the coin had
not been worn or mutilated. The figures
and designs presented lines as sharp as
new ones, and the milling hadn't been
disturbed. These coins were, however,
all short from twenty-five to fifty cents
in value. These facts have caused the
officials to think that there are persons
at work in the city who are making a
regular business of defrauding the gov
ernment.
The gold in these cases has been re-
moved from the coin by means of IL
chemical process, which does not appear
to affect the general appearance of the
money.
An old treasury official, in speaking of
the fraud, gave mo some interesting
facts concerning this species of robbery.
"There are half q dozen ways of getting
gold off coins,' said he, '.but the two
most i'll vogue are those where acid is
used, and in the sweating process. The
latter is most ia vogue among Polish
Jews and Italians, vino make a regular
business Of it.
''In the first place tney secure a sto,.t
canvas bag and Gli it about half full Of
gold coins. The top OF the bag is tied,
and then the coins are shaken together
for hours at a time. The friction of one
coin rubbing against tho other wears off
considerable gold, and it is deposited at
the bottom of the bag. Each time $500
worth Of gold coin is treated to the
sweating process the italian will prob
ably secure 500 worth of dust. The
coins when taken out look somewhat old
as if they had been in circulation a
long tirne-but they will always be ;sc-
cepted by persons not used to handling
money.
"Toa person familiar with the frauds,
however, it is always easy to detect q
coin that has been treated to a Sweat
The Italian will always take new coin
for the purpose, ard if Il person will only
stop to think he can also detect lignt
coin. The gold does not wear off as
rapidly as is generally supposed in ordi-'
nary circulation. Therefore when per-
son finds a coin which from its date is
only two OF three years old, that has a
very worn appearance, it has undoubted-
ly been treated to Sweat These
coins will always be found short weight,
and people will save money if they
watch the date and condition of the
pieces they receive.
''The process of removing gold by an
acid bath is now resorted to more gen.
orally than the old sweating system, as
it is harder to detect the shortage in the
coins. On 'sweated' coin the figures and
milling are worn, while on the others
the designs are not at all injured. To
detect shortage in the latter coin weigh
them" New York Herald.