The herald., 1898-02-06

| Il
coin that bears the face of the
| goddess of liberty. If all the pen
| n1es that are now in circulation
in the United States were piled
one upon another, when the pile
was finished it would be one hundred
times as big as the giant Goddess of
Liberty that enlightens small part of
the world in New York harbor.
If those same pennies We're laid edge
| to edge they would extend from San
Francisco to st. Petersburg. 1t is also
| true that the tall pile of them referred
| to would be 1000 times the height Of
| the Effel Tower, the tallest in the
| world.
| All the pennies in Tie United States
are stamped at the Philadelphia mint,
but they are not, as most people sup
pose, made there. The government buys
| the blank coppers on which the design
| is stamped from western firm, each
thousand cents costing $1.25. So one
hundred cents, with face value of 81,
cost the government less than one-f1fth
of that sum.
AS a result of all this, Uncle Sam
would drive pawn broker to suicide
all of the pennies that are coined were
presented for redemption. They never
are, however, for fully one-fifth of them
seemingly go out of existence in mys-
terious ways. All the ways in which
the pennies are lost are as multifari-
GUS as the sins of the Insurer. If the
| lost pennies We're weighed, it is esti-
mated that they would tip the scale at
$500 pounds.
| When the blanks from which the
cents are made reach the mint they
are first curt into long strips These
strips are run through a stamping ma
chine which cuts them out, imprints the
design and drops them into boxes.
! Then they are run through a sorting
machine, which throws out any that
are imperfectly made and the rest pass
on to a broad table, where they are
counted, not by hand, but by means OF
a grooved case into which they fall five
hundred at a time. Then they are tied
up in canvas bags ready Ito be shipped
away as they are called for.
One would think that the penny
would be the last coin to be counter.
fefted, but as matter of fact there
are more spurious cents than there arr
VI uOlldIS VI uliiitS' ~ pOuIU OL copper
enough to make 100 cents, can b,
bought for IL cents, so that the coun
terfeiters can make a good profit i
they are skilful enough. SO many bat
pennies come ito the United State
treasury that some of the Secret Ser
vice men are at work all the time look
ing for the men who make them.
1.-THE hardest working member of the
whole coin family is the penny" said
Supt. Milman Of the New York Sub.
Treasury the other day, as he watched
the unloading of an express wagon
! piled high with canvas bags of the
the money world and a remarkably
spry youngster, too, who covers a lot
of ground in the course of a year. It is
also pre-eminently the children's coin.
though I dare say there are a lot of
interesting things about 1T that those
whose sticky fingers help to keep it un-
der motion do not know.
| For instance, cents often come to
us at the rate of q million a day. The
SUBJ Treasury is the clearing of
these coins for the metropolitan district
and We handle an immense number of
| them in the course of the year. That
lot just coming in contains $1,000 worth
and represents a days collection from
a single big slot-machine company.
Perhaps before the day is over a
delivery truck from one Of the great
department stores will be down here
after $4,000 worth-1, 100000 pieces.
! That often happens, and it shows the