Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1893-04-29
THE CONSCIENCE FUND,
ITS ORIGIN DUE TO MULES SUPPLIED
THE UNION ARMY.

Considerable sum of Money Cont rihutrd
to the Treasury department by People
Who Regret a W rong Done The Sender,
Naturally Conceal Their Identity.
Every now and then an item appears
in the statements of the Treasury De
partment at Washington showing that
an addition has been made to the e on
science Fund In many instances the
struggle between the man and his CON
science has been going on for wears
but at last conscience is victorious, and
then there is a remittance to the Treas
ury Department. He may be deacon
in the church, but the time comes when
his "amens" stick in his throat And
the only way to dislodge them is to dis
gorge the money due Uncle Sam.
And what is the Conscience Fund p
OF the many results Of the civil war.
perhaps the most curious is the origin
and development of the fund. Before
1860 nothing had been heard of such
thing. But when the clash of arms he
tween the North and the South began
the general government needed supplies
of every description, and these were
furnished as promptly as possible OF
course, an unscrupulous person could
take advantage of the then eXistu"
state of things and charge eXorbittnt
prices for his supplies or else furnish
result would be the same-he would he
tho gamer and the government the
loser. For instance, among the earlier
remittances to the Treasury Depart
ment was a sum of money from Il man
whose conscience troubled him about
some mules he had supplied to the
army. There were no particulars in
fact, the senders of conscience money
never bother themselves about details
for reasons that are quite apparent.
For a while the Treasury Depart
ment permitted the conscience remit
tances to go into the general receipts Of
the government, but soon the number
of remittances of this kind increased
so fast that it was found desirable to
open a separate account for "conscieucc
items" The receipts from this source
of income to the government amount
now to about $500, 900; so that the
man who fooled the government on Il
mule and who subsequently repented,
really did a good thing i'll showing to
other troubled souls in like prcdica-
ment how to relieve their couscienccs
in practical way without their neigh
bors being any the wiser
An official of the United States
Treasury, who has held Office for
twenty years, says: The remittances
usually comes from persons who have
imported goods into this country, and
have defrauded the government, | i'm
agine. As a general proposition, there
are not many ways in which to defraud
the government; but the testimony OF
the revenue officers would seem to iu-
dicate that the lines for human weak
ness run in this direction very strongly.
OF course, we have no definite means
of knowing tho actual facts, can only
surmise as to the real reason for the re-
mittance. The letters that reach us
are carefully written so that the reader
on first blush might imagine the
writer's to be the most illiterate and ig
norant people imaginable, Words are
Intentionally misspelled, sentences
twisted, and the communication would
ordinarily go into the waste basket
were it not for the money inclosod.
This comes in all shapes, by draft, pos
tai note, but mostly in actual currency,
No name is signed, and, with the excep-
ton of the money, we are no wiser than
we were before. But the money indi-
Gates that conscience has been at work, y