Evening star., 1896-10-31

cess TO the records OF the treasury, in con-
necuon with r. f. Preston. the director of
the mint Mr.. Preston has charge of all
the mints in the United States.
he IS the chief watch dog of T-nce
sam trea: ures of gold and silver, and he
Knows more about the mint, perhaps, than
any other man connected with the govern
ment- he has been In the employ of the
United States treasury for the past fo-tv
years, and he is today one of its most eff
ncient officers. You remember how about
TWO years ago. Henry S. Cochran the
weigh clerk at the Philadelphia mint stole
bars to the value of s113, 900 from the gold
vault, stealing it bar by bar from a stack
OF sixteen million dollars worth of gold
bullion. which was there stored away Mr.
Preston was one of the officials who su-
per!ntended the putting away of that bull
lion, and he was acting director of the mint
at the time that Cochrans theft was dis
covered The first great steal in the Phil
adelphia mint occurred forty-three wears
ago, just before Mr.. Preston entered the
government service, and, curiously enough
this theft was detected by Cochran who
was an under clerk of the robber, and who
by exposing his superior got the place of
weigh clerk, which he held for forty years.
and in which he was at the time his own
great robbery occurred. During the inves-
t!gation at Philadelphia the thief, Cochran.
told Mr. Preston the story, and Mr. Preston
repeated il 10 me today.
Stole Fortune In Gold Dust.
1T was away back in 1853" said the di-
rector of the mint. when . vast amount of
gold was coming in from California that
the first big robbery occurred The culpiit
was James E Negus, and he was the
weigh clerk of the mint. There was at this
time no assay Office New York, and all of
the gold dust and nuggets were sent by the
banks of the different cities to Philadeiphia
To be reduced to bullion. Negus had the
handling OF this treasure. and he for a long
time carried on systematic stealing from
the different deposits sent in. 1t was his
business 10 take charge of them, weigh
them and put them into the vault until they
could be melted. By taking a nugget or a
pinch of dust from each deposit he was
able to steal thousands of dollars, and he
probably carried en- his stealings during The
" hole of the four years that he was in the
employ of the mint Cochran was at this
time boy working in the mint He acted
as Negus' assistant He was led tc suspect
that Segus was taking out gold dust and
substituting black sand for it in some of
the deposits. He took occasion to reweigh
several deposits when NeguS was not pres
ent. and found that they were from five TO
ten ounces short. He went to the superin-
tendent OF the mint and charged Negus
with the theft Negus was called up He
confessed, and stated that he had stolen
s1O.6D worth of gold dust. AS you may see
from the letters here in the records of the
department. the treasury officials believed
his confession, but they did not think he
should be arrested. he had made restitu-
ton He was allowed to go free. Within
few weeks he sailed for Europe and that
was the last that was ever heard of him.
There was no cable in those days and the
probability Is that he carried a goodIy
amount of gold away with him. The rob-
tery was not from the treasury but from
the banks who sent in the gold and there
was no way of telling just how much he
stole.
Cochran, the Mint Robber.
'It was In this way that Henry s. Coch-
ran became weigh clerk of the mint" Di-
rector Preston went en-. He took the
place of thief, and there is no telling how
soon he became q thief himself He told