The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-02-28

the government to inspect the currency
offered for redemption. In fact every per-
son employed In the bureau. from Mr..
Relyea down. is in some degree an expert,
because each one of them has to pass on
the genuineness of the money presented
for redemption, and this is difficult task.
Remember that this money comes to the
treasury, as a rule, only when Il is so bad
~ worn that Ii will not pass current. This
dirty. torn, greasy, ragged money the eX-
perts of Mr.. Relyea's office have to handle
and decide whether it was issued by
the government and should be redeemed
at its face value or whether il is the work
of cOunterfeiters and should be rejected.
1t is not at all TO the discredit of the eX-
perts of the bureau that some bogus mon
ey has got past them and been detected
in one of the offices to which the pieces
of the money so for further eXamina lion.
| This does not occur often.
The peculiar province of Mrs. Brown Is
not to detect bad money--though she Is an
expert at that-but to put together torn
pieces of money sent in for Identification
and redemption.
These pieces of money come from all
parts of the country and arrive under
most extraordinary conditions This Is not
surprising in view of the fact that they
come from experiences with fire and water
and gastric juices and many other power
full agents. A not infrequent accident to
money is to be left in stove, whence 1t
is taken in a badly charred condition, with
only ashes 20 represent the greater part
of it, Often it is used by rats to make
I their nests; or buried in the dampness of
a cellar, it rots away or, swallowed by
COW, it is rescued from her stomach a
Shiny mass of paper.
Here are the rules of the treasury for
the redemption of mutilated money: For
piece of currency greater than two-ffths
| as. Il a
note, one-half the face value of the note
is given. For a piece as great as three
| ffths the whole value of the note is given.
For piece two-fifths in size of the orig
inal, nothing is given. But this last pro-
vision is limited by the law, which gives
discretion 10 the treasury department to
give full value for a note II the owner
can prove to the satisfaction of the au-
thorities that the note, or the missing part
of 1t, was destroyed. This last provis-
ion opens the door to possible fraud, and
many are the efforts made by dishonest
persons to take advantage of it,
The fragments of money which come 10
| the treasury are turned over to one Of
the experts-in difficult cases to Mrs
| Brown-6nd sorted out under the micro
| scope for identification. They are picked
apart, and each tiny piece is assigned to
its place like part of a puzzle. This is
usually done on glass. and the fragments
| are eventually put between pieces of glass
| to hold them together while they are
measured to see whether there is two
| fifths or three-ffths of the note identih-
able, or whether il is so little that the
owner can recover nothing. Sometimes It
is very serious matter to the owner: but
the poor are not the only applicants for
assistance to recover damaged money. AT
the time w. K. Vanderblt's beautiful
home at Newport was burned Mrs Van
derbHt-now Mrs. Belmont-sent in about
| 81 900 in mutilated currency out of which
Mr.. Brown was able to identify for re,
demption all but a fraction OF the sum
1t is not alone mutilated money that
comes to the treasury, but dirty and worn
money of all kinds. The national bank
| notes go TO the redemption agency espe-
| cially maintained for them. This agency
handed more than s97,OOO,00O in national
| bank notes last year. In the same period
Mr.. Relyea's division handled $40 600, 900
and more. OF this S1505l3, 900 was in silver
! certificates and about s89, 100000 in curren-
| cy certificates.
Sometimes, as have said, counterfelts
| get past the experts in this bureau, and
! are caught In the other bureaus to which
| the halves are sent when the packages of
| old notes have gone under the knife and
! been divided up for counting and identlfi-
| cation before they are destroyed. But this
! is OF the most frequent form Of attempted
fraud The mutilated money offers the
easiest path to this sort of crime
Some of the experiences of the redemp-
| ton division with would-be thieves are in
! teresting. One man in Kansas sent to the
| treasury the halves Of some small bills
with the edges nicely charred, accompanied
| by an affidavit from the sender that he
| had put the money in his pocket, hung his
| coat on a fence, and that the coat had
| been burned, TO the destruction of part of
the notes. 1t happened that the treasury
! had redeemed the other halves of these
notes just two and half years before for
| a money broker on the Bowery In New
York, and, thinking the case Suspicious,
| had kept an eye out for the possibility of
attempted fraud. The Kansas man was
| person Of good business standing, and his
| bankers threatened the treasury officials
| with dismissal if they questioned his af-
| 1davit. They put the case in the hands
of the department of justice and eventu-
ally the man plead guilty and was fined
81 900
| bank in Alabama received from a de-
positor a fragment of a $40 bill and the
! treasury people paid s. for 1t. Later came
| a claim, accompanied by the other part of
the bill a little 'charred, with an affidavit
! So ying the sender had burnt The remainder
| of the note by mistake.
| A Chicago man sent In fragments of two
| $40 bills and one $40 bill with an affidavit
| telling how the other halves had been de-
| stroyed; and in the same mail the other
| halves of these notes came in from q Chi
! cago bank. A special agent caught the
maker of the affidavit who proved 10 be
| the tool of some swlndlers, and he was
sent to prison for year and half,
I A schoolbOy's View of Poetry.
From the London Daily News.
A letter from some Lubbock schooiboys