Omaha daily bee., 1902-09-07

a pickering string and then fastened with
an Ingenious lock, almost as difficult to
undo, except under the right circumstance
and by the right person, as the most
elaborate combination safe lock. Besides,
each lock shows a number which Is
changed automatically every time the APP
paratus is touched. So perfect Is the
fastening thus provided that Il would
virtually be impossible to get into a bag
OF currency packed for shipment without
cutting the bag and the company has
suffered practically no losses from dis
honest employees tampering with the bags
containing bank notes since adopting the
new fastening, whereas In the old days
Of sealing wax fastenings such losses we're
not at all
Before being put into the bags the notes
are made UP into packages. Five dollar
notes are packed in $4,000 lots. Their
bulk depends upon whether they are new
or not. Twenty thousand dollars in
'hves" new, would make a package several
inches thick and 81, 900, 5000 in such
packages would make a pile about three
feet high, four feet long and two and a
half feet wide.
shipping the Cash.
The precaution taken to insure the
safety Of currency shipments are elaborate
In the extreme. The package of notes
or silver coin are first locked or sealed
in the regulation bags, in the shipping
once Of the express company. Then the
bags are placed in small safes which are
closed with combination locks and then
hauled on trucks to the cars, where the
small safes are unlocked and their con-
tents taken from them and placed In the
big car safe. 1t is as near burglar proof
as human ingenuity can make It, but no
one has yet succeeded in building a safe
that would not yield to dynamite II prop
erly applied. Whoever shall invent a
device that shall do away with express
robberies will certainly be sure of a
fortune.
Heavy currency shipments do not be-
gin as a rule until som time after the
banks begin to pay out the cash to the
buyers and the farmers. Az first each
OF the western and southern sub
treasures, located at Cincinnati, Chicago,
st. Louis and New Orleans, is we'll sup
piled from the internal revenue and GUS
toms payments which have been accumu-
lating for some time. AS long as this
supply lasts the eastern banker who has
to send money south or west merely has
to buy credit" for the sum required.
send duplicate drafts to Washington and
to his western correspondent and the sub
treasury nearest the latter will release In
currency the sum named. 1t is after the
supply In the sub-treasuries is exhausted
that the long-distance shipments between
bankers are resorted to.
Shipments Of new paper currency from
Washington are going on all the time, the
sums to redeem old and worn ones being
considerable. Just now, also, the banks
are taking advantage Of certain provisions
Of the law to increase their circulation
and the government has been printing and
sending out new notes in pretty bis
patches for some time. Preparations fol
the regions where the big crops are raised
have been going on both in the banks
aud in Washington since the latter part .
July or the early part Of August. Their,
are practically no shipments of currenc!
from the east to the Pacific coast for tn,
movement Of crops, the coast getting III
supply OF money for that purpose mostl,
in gold, which Is more popular there thai
in the east, from the mint in San Fran
cisco.