Evening star., 1901-07-20

The government machine crushes every
month more than forty tons of retired cur
rency and little more than half a ton of
this is required for modelling purposes.
This molder Of concentrated wealth, Hen
ry Martin, is q strange soldier of fortune,
who has had a career almost as eXtraordf-
nary as the occupation in which he is now
engaged. In his boyhood he was a sailor
before the mast. in various English ships.
A picture of the battle between the Moni-
tor and the Merrimac fired him with
desire to enter the American navy. Early
in the sixties he worked his way to
America, and failing to get in the ravy,
Joined the army. and wound up with a
siege in the hospital that cost him a limb.
He helped in the rebuilding of Chicago that
followed the great fire, spent three years in
the saddle among the COW puncherS of the
west. and then drifted to Washington and
served as watchman in the treasury build
ing until a turn of the political wheel of
fortune threw him out.
1t was in his term of service as one of
the watch dogs of Uncle Sans big money
chests that Martin conceived the idea of
turning the supposedly worthless mac
Grated money to account in his own pecu-
liar way. The stimulant for his inventive
genius was the sight one day of a clerk
who was possessed of some artistic ability
molding by hand a crude design for one of
the treasury officials who desired to pre-
serve wad of the dilapidated currency in
this form. The quick-witted watchman Sc
cured key to the room in which the
churnings of the macerator We're stored,
and night after night he pursued his self
instruction in sculpture until he was mas
ter of his strange medium.
Lost Money at First.
The inventors first efforts to turn his
knack to commercial advantage did not
meet with signal success. He lost $500 in
eight months, but kept up his fight, and
for more than eighteen years now Martin
has scarcely been able to keep up with the
demand foc the Interesting if not highly
artistic trophies. His studio" on Capitol
Hill is not very pretentious establish
ment, but it is at least possessed of the
attraction of novelty. The major part of
the work Is done by Martin himself al
though several women are employed as
helpers. The macerated money is brought
from the treasury as often as occasion re-
QulreS, half a ton at a time, and the unin-
itiated visitor would scarcely suspect that
the large dry goods box packed to overflow
Ing with a damp, greeniSh grayish mass
constitutes, so far as Uncle Sam is con-
cerned, the final resting place of s6O00OOo.
Immediately upon its arrival the mac
Grated currency gets a thorough bath, a
tedious operation, from which it energies
several shades lighter in tint. After it has
been subjected to pressure to remove as
much of the water as possible 1t is ham
mered and pounded into plaster of paris
molds. and then, after another interval for
drying, the completed trinket is smoothed
and finished by hand. AS may be imagined
the preparation OF the molds is the phase
of the work requiring the highest skill
The bust or statuette is first modelled with
great care In clay, and from this creation
the plaster mOldS are made. mold may
be used almost indefinitely, but occasion
ally at rush intervals when souvenirs are
being turned out night and day to meet a
holiday demand. the plaster of paris abb
serbs so much moisture that it is almost
impossible to continue work.
Has Made Fifty Thousand Articles
The objects which have been modelled
from this retired currency include busts
and medalliOns of almost every man who
has been prominent in the nations history
in the past quarter of century, minia-
ture reproductions of the Washington mon
ument and some of the public buildings at
the national capital, and innumerable fan
ciful creations. The veteran modcler esti-
mates that he has made in all more than
10000 macerated trophies of one kind or
other, and has utilized in their formation
several billions of dollars
by weighing masses of the macerated
pulp and comparing them with an equiva-
lent bulk of paper money in condition for
circulation, estimates have been arrived at
as to the amount of currency embodied in
each of these governmental souvenirs. OF
course, this is necessarily an approxima
tion, since bit of macerated ware might
perchance have been fashioned exclusively
from $1,000 notes, but the figures are at
least conservative enough, since they ere
based on the weight of IS notes, the lowest
denomination fed to the macerator. Tiny
fac-Similes of the Washington monument
are supposed to contain s., 900, good sized
bust of Grant requires 5000, 600 worth of
eral Logan, half life size, embodies half