The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-01-18


turned states evidence and testified
against his accomplices-the restau
rateur and another man. Uncle Sam
never recovered a cent. Had this
thief stolen new notes it would have
been an easy matter to indentify them.
EMPLOYEES HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR
MISTAKES.
Many attempts to steal from the
Treasury have been made through its
| Redemption Bureau, whose function
it is to exchange brand-new money
for that which is old, worn and torn.
A corps of women counters, with deft
fingers, and another corps of women
inspectors with eagle eyes, scrupu-
lously examine each old coin or note
before certifying how much new
money shall be given for it in ex-
change. They are trained to throw
cu<a counterfeit on sight. If they
pass one or make mistake in enu-
meration they are held responsible for
the loss entailed by the Treasury.
After the counting occurs each pile of
old paper money is sent to little
guillotine which cuts it in two length
wise. One stack of halves is then
sent to one division of the Treasury
to be counted the other, to another
division for the same treatment.
Worn coin exchanged for new is
sent to the melting pot. All this
counting is, Of course, done to insure
against the theft of even worn-out
money.
Thousands of dollars are believed
to have been stolen some years ago
by one of these women counters who
had worked for Uncle Sam a quarter
of a century. She would take ten
worn paper notes home with her and
there cut and tear nine of them into
pieces which, when pasted together,
would make ten ragged or urdersized
notes, sufficiently complete to pass
muster. The latter she would return
to the Treasury, keeping the note
which she had left untouched. 1t
was detected that within three days
she stole nine hundred and forty dol
lars in this manner.
Forty years ago an employee of
the Redemption Division stole hun
dreds of dollars while serving upon
committee appointed to burn all re-
deemed money. Instead of throwing
all packages intrusted to him into the
furnace he would turn his back upon
his co workers, slip package after
package into his pocket and return
with them into the Redemption Di-
vision. Here he would substitute
the old money for new notes of equal
amount. Such a theft would be i'm
possible today.
ALL MULTILATED MONEY IS REDEEM
ABLE.
Uncle Sam agrees to make good
any loss or accident to good money
which can be reasonably proven. For
this purpose he employs in the Re-
deinption Bureau several women ex-
pefts-one to determine the value of
burnt money, one to estimate the
worth of torn money, another to de-
tect counterfeit money. When their
Newport mansion was burned the
Vanderbilts sent bundle of charred
bills to the redemption office and the
expert managed to identify more than
two thousand dollars therein. On an
other occasion package of ashes was
received from a Missouri man who
claimed it represented seventeen hun
dred dollars in bank notes, placed in
a stove for safe-keeping overnight,
but forgotten when the fire was kin
died next morning. Eighty per cent.
of their value was identified and re-
deemed.
One time the Treasury redeemed a
small fortune recovered from the
grave of supposed pauper who had
been buried with the money hidden
in a secret pocket. A man and wife
who quarreled tore bill in two and
each sent piece for redemption.
Uncle Sam mailed to each new note
representing half of the original.
A workman in silver factory who
had let a note drop under his roller
sent it to the Redemption Bureau inn
bedded in the metal. Uncle Sam
sent him the worth of his lost note as
we'll as the sheet of silver.
At still another time there came in
for redemption five thousands dollars
worth of compound interest notes
which an army officer had found in
use as ornaments upon the walls of a
Sioux Indians hut. The Indian,
who had captured them from some
victim, gladly exchanged them for
some highly colored chromos. In
such cases the worth of torn or other
wise multilated notes is returned
when two-thirds of each can be iden-
titled
TORE OFF THE CORNERS OF $22, 900
IN NOTES.
A pedler from small Pennsylvania
town came TO the Redemption Bureau
six years ago and exhibited pill-box
filled with scraps of paper money.
He told pitiful tale of gaining fifty
thousand dollars in speculation, oi
secreting the bills beneath his spring
house floor, and Of discovering later
that rats had devoured them, leaving
only what he brought with him. The
scraps were found to be corners ol
twenty-five thousand dollars worth
of notes. The fact that the rats had
had such a voracious preference fol
centres alone, and such pronounced
dislike for corners, aroused suspicion
The department refused to make gooc
the pretended loss. 1t was evident
that the fellow had pinched off small
bits of many notes, had passed these
notes, and had similarly treated other:
received in exchange This he doubt
less had done Systematically until ht
supposed he had sufficient fragment:
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