San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-04-24
MUTILATED MONEY.
HOW DAMAGED CURRENCY is RE-
DEEMED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

Treasury Expert in Washington-A Few
Cases in Which Bills Were Apparently
HopeIessIy Destroyed.
The redemption division of the treas
ury department is one of the most inter-
esting of its branches. 1t is here that
mutilated money comes for Identified
ton, and the form in which it comes
tells to the chief of the division many a
romance and many tale of woe. There
IS much that is humorous and much
that is pathetic in Mrs. Browns public
experience. That experience ranges over
nearly eighteen years now, and in that
time millions of dollars have passed
through her hands, most of it in such
condition as to be beyond Identification
by ordinary means.
There is hardly any way you can think
of in which money is not mutilated or
partly destroyed. Men light their CT
gars with it when they are drunk; rats
gnaw it into tatters, and fire crisps it
into brown ashes. Whenever there is a
sudden cold snap at the beginning Of
winter the redemption division has a
perfect harvest of mutilated money. One
of the favorite hiding places which wOm-
en- have for their savings is the oven.
When a cold day comes the woman
probably forgets all about the money,
builds a fire in the stove and cooks the
bills to what is known in the cookbook
as erich brown"
An interesting case is that of a woman
living near Hamilton, o., who was
burned to death. She had pocketbOOk
with her containing seventy dollars.
Her children sent the pocketboOk with
its charred contents to the treasury de-
partment, and Mrs. Brown picked out
the seventy dollars and identified it. A
great deal of the money that comes in is
partly burned. Wherever a part of the
burned money can be identified and a
satisfactory affidavit is furnished as to
the facts the government restores the
amount to the owner. But if note is
entirely destroyed the government is just
so much ahead.
Much of the money which comes in for
redemption has been damaged in rail
road wrecks. When a car is burned in a
railroad wreck no attempt is made by
the express company to remove the
money from the safe. The safe is sent
direct to the treasury department and
opened there. The money is usually in
a pretty badly charred condition. 1t is
taken out, and the treasury experts go
over it and identify as much of it as can
be recognized. Two years ago pack
age containing 500 900 was taken from a
wreck near st. Louis, and all of the
money was identified and restored to its
owners.
Afavorite hiding place for money with
men who have no faith in banks is in
their cellars. A Philadelphia man sent
$3.50 which he had buried in a tin box
under his cellar floor. When he took up
the box he found the money widowed
and rotten. The package as it came
into Mrs. Browns hands looked like a
bunch of tobacco leaves. 1t was almost
impossible to distinguish the character
of the notes with the naked eye. Mrs.
Brown was picking apart the pieces bit
by bit and arranging them on slips Of
brown paper cut to the size of dollar
bill. She said that she expected to iden-
tify the whole Of it.
One man sent in some time ago forty
two dollars which had been taken from
the stomach Of goat The goat was not
worth forty-twO dollars, so he was sacri-
feed. The Identification Of this money
was not very nice task, but it was COM
paratively an easy one. When Mrs.
Brown dropped the sticky mass into a
basin of water the bills came apart and
were very easily identified. This is not
the only goat case which has come to the
redemption division, and it has happened
that even cows and pigs have been sacri.
feed to recover money which they had
swallowed. There is one case on record
where a baby swallowed some bank
notes, and an emetic saved the money
and possibly the baby. Babies do not
often swallow an entire bill, but many
afidavits are received accompanying por.
tons of bills which say that the missing
portions were swallowed by babies and
therefore wholly destroyed"
Usually when mutilated money is sent
in for redemption the owner has a close
if not perfect idea of the amount which
is represented, but one old German il
the west sent in some years ago what hi
claimed to be the remains of s. 1000, anC
after long, long investigation Mrs
Brown fully identified $7,1OO in tn,
package. a secret service agent wa
sent out to investigate the case, but h
could discover nothing that would throw
light upon the mystery, and so the mis-
take was charged up to the old man
stupidity, and the department sent 81 ,1O
to him.