St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-11

have a little matter of $25,000,000
worth of mixed money for our daily
use. In Vault z there are $3.50, 000,-
600 worth of bonds, which are held
as security for the national bank
circulation, and in another vault we
have $500, 100000 worth Of notes to
replace worn and mutilated money
which is unfit for circulation. The
total weight of the coin is 5000 tons,
and there are enough sreenbacks to
carpet a farm. The chief robberies
attempted are in connection with the
greenbacks, and most of these come
in through the redemption bureau.
I will give you a messenger now, who
will take you to the chief of that
bureau, and I will ask him to give
you all the information you want"
MONEY TO BURN.
With this Treasurer Morgan
pressed button. An ebony messen-
ger appeared. He led me down into
the basement of the treasury build
ing, opened a door or iron grating,
| and took me into a great room where
hundreds of thousands OF dollars, in
all sorts of packages, were lying
about. These packages were Of old
bills, which had come in for redemp-
ton. Some were corded up in piles,
! others were neatly laid out upon the
counter, and others were still in the
| great boX-like carts, in which they
| are carried from one part of the
| treasury to the other. The package
were lying about just as they came
from the banks, and as I looked AL
bert Relyea, the chief of the bureau,
picked up one of them and handed
| it to me. There is enough in that
handful to make you rich," said he.
I looked at the figures on its out
side and found that I had $780, 600 in
my hand. you have $1,S50,000 be-
fore you," he went on, as he point
ed to about two bushels of bank
note packages on desk at the right.
1--WE handle in this bureau just
| about a million dollars of notes a
| day. Uncle Sam, you know, gives
new money for old. We pass upon
| the old, cut it into pieces and send
| it out to the bureau of engraving
and printing, where it is ground up
I into mush. If there are any pieces of
a bill left, and it can be shown that
the man holding the pieces has legit-
imately lost the balance, we give him
new bills. We have replaced burnt
money. and money chewed into thou
sands of pieces. A great many of
the attempted frauds upon the treas
ury are from people who pretend
that money has been destroyed
when 1T has not, and want Uncle
Sam to give them new supply.
A $4,000 RATS NEST.
/ Here, for instance, is a $4,000 job
that has been troubling me for some
time" said Mr.. Relyea, as he took a
handful of MANILA paper slips, each the
size of bank note, from a drawer at
his right and laid them before me. ION
the corners or at the top Of each slir
there was little piece of a bank note
pasted. Some of $40, some Of $40, some
of hundred and several of thousand
None of the pieces were bigger thar
your little finger NAIL and they came
as 1t was afterward shown, from al
least d hundred dlIerent notes. ThOSe
bits of money" said Mr.. Relyea, were
brought IN to me one day a few weeks
ago by slouchy-looking adventurer
who came from one of the backwoods
counties of Pennsylvania. He brought
them in in pill box and laid then
before me and told me he wanted the
United States to redeem the amount o.
money which they represented.
asked him hoy the money had beel
destroyed, and he told his story
He said he was a peddler, and tina
while out m Oregon a year ago he hac
made a lucky speculation, which hac
netted him $4,000. This money he ha'