The Savannah morning news., 1901-07-21
SOME WASHINGTON GOSSIP.
STRANGE POWER POSSESSED BY
SOME TREASURY EXPERTS.


gered-Expert Brown Tells How
Money Fragments Are Identified.
SwindIerS Attack the Redemption
Division of Trcasury-HOw swim
dIer Was Caught-Other Matters of
General Interest.
Washington, D. c., July 2O.-There
seems to be something positively un-
canny in the supernatural intelligence
displayed by experts of the United
States Treasury in identifying coun-
terfeit and mutilated paper money.
The experts in the latter line are all
women, and perhaps their extraordi-
nary power is due to that sixth sense
which women are said to possess. Notes
that have been charred to cinders,
rotted until not line is recognizable,
torn into shreads by infants and In
sane people, chewed by dogs and mice,
woven into nests by birds, even partial
ly digested in the stomaChs of COWS,
goats and swine, are daily sent to the
Redemption Bureau-each parcel ac-
companied by an AFFIDAVIT giving the
original amount of the money and the
circumstances attending its mutilation
and recovery. What stories may be
CLEANED, in that department, ludicrous,
tragic, pathetic; what lessons learned
of the frailties of our poor humanity.
Some of the money has been buried for
safe-keeping by too-careful souls who
died without disclosing the hiding
place; some of ii has actually lain for
N nd with the
green mold of decay upon it. Some has
been taken from putrefying corpses and
the bodies of the drowned. Some has
been through fire and flood and rail-
road disaster, and not little bears
stains of human blood. A decided in
crease in the business of the bureau
was noticed for a time after the great
Texas flood of last year, and the later
conhagration in Jacksonville-in char
led and sodden Jumps that had once
been the circulating medium" and the
same is true after every great railroad
accident or other disaster. AS many
be readily imagined, many of the pack
ages are anything but nice to handle.
Perhaps the most frequent of the ac-
companying affidavits concerns the
misery instinct which seeks to hide it's
treasures, frustrated by nibbling mice
or the moth and rust that cloth cor
rupt; or the forgetfulness that slows
away money in stove-pipes and CHM
neys and neglects to take out when
fire is lighted-or, more commonly,
when somebody else lights the fire.
Such a case turned out happily last
week. 1t was that of Luong Sing,
New York laundryman, who had been
almost starving himself to hoard money
enough to take his dead brother back
to the graves of his ancestors in the
Flcwery Kingdom. He had almost
enough-S426 in all-which he put into
his stoVe-pipe for safe-keeping while
he went to see about the transportation
of the corpse. In his absence, an off,
cious neighbour came in ana built
rousing fire to heat the flats" mean
ing to surprise Quong when he return
ed with a good lot of ironing done.
Quong was surprised, you may be sure;
but am glad to say that none of the
money was destroyed beyond re-
demption. He received $426 in crisp
new greenbacks, and already is sailing
westward with his deceased relative.
The result of another recent accident
came to the treasury in a tin tobacco
box, and looked slab of earth pressed
compactly together, or miniature
Mexican "dobe" brick. 1t turned not to
be a wad of money, amounting origi-
nally to $235, which an Indiana farmer
had in his vest pocket while blowing.
Somehow the roll dropped out and was
not missed until the field was plowed.
Then he searched and searched and
even turned every furrow over again,
but found nothing like the lost money.
Year after year, when the field was
plowed, he kept a sharp lookout; and
only last April, after the bills had lain
in the earth six long years, was his
long search rewarded, in the blackened
mass which looked so little like money
that the wonder is he recognized it.
1t was q discouraging task for the fe-
male expert-but by some means
known only to herself she identified
about two-thirds of it.
How is it done. you say? That is
what l went to find out, the other day,
| in the redemption division of the Treas
ury I was directed, in my quest for
| information, to Mrs. A. E. Brown, the
chief expert, whose task is to pick out
from the money-fragments turned over
to her any marks of identification
which will verify the affidavit, or dis
| prove II, as the case may be. Scattered
| about on her desk are fragments of
paper money, placed on slips of brown
paper of the size and contour of an or
| binary envelopes. These are all mark
ed and labelled, so that each can be
| credited to the owner of the fragments.
| Said Mrs. Brown in reply to judicious
! questioning: The mutilated money
comes from no one particular source,
except, perhaps, from the banks, where
1t has been taken by the individual
| owner as the first step toward getting
it to the u. S. Treasury, which will
redeem all notes identified as to their
! face value and number. OF course the
banks do not redeem these fragments
and then look to us to reimburse them;
! ii is only an act of accommodation
which the banks extend to individuals.
! The rules of the Treasury require that
three fifths of the bills be sent for iden-
tification; less than that amount will
either shut off the redemption altogeth-
err or at least prevents the full amount
| being given back to the owner. For
example, supposing half of five-dollar
bill is sent for redemption, and suppos-
ing 1t is in such a good state of pre-
servation that its identification can be
told at a glance, the owner of that
fragment will receive from the Treas
ury only two dollars and a half and
not the full face value of the original
bill. At first thought. this seems UNI
just to the owner; but further consid-
Grafton will show that at any time the
other half of that bill might come to
us. may be from the same person; and
If so two dollars and a half will also
be paid for its redemption. Now II