The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-01-25

In a great vaulted. windowIess room
| in the massive Julius tower of the
fortress of Spandau, near Berlin. in
closed by walls six feet thick, lie $780,
! 100000 in gold CONS ready for instant
use should war be declared by or
against the German empire
/ The great fund is sacred to war and
nothing else. 1t was put away thirty
years ago, to be left untouched except
| for that purpose, to serve in time of
need and furnish the ready cash so
ted out without waiting till a war
loan could be levied.
If it had been left in circulation it
would have far more than tripled it
self in the time since it was taken
away from the uses of man and buried
in the tower.
The money is in the form of 10 and
20-mark pieces in gold. The room in
which it lies is so built IN the great
| tower that no amount of study or COM
| bination from the outside would serve
even to give a hint as to its location.
Even those who enter the vault now
and then cannot point to any particu-
lar part of the outer walls and say,
The room lies here. or here"
Around the tower there stands a
assure the fact that the sentinels are
bright and constantly on the alert
they are relieved every two hours in
the summer and every hour in the
winter
Every morning and night an engin-
eer officer examines all the walls from
the deep cellars to the top, both out
side and inside.
Once a year two civilian members of
the government appear and make an
independent examination of the walls
The official count was made by Her
man Pachnicke, a member of the
reichstag and a commissioner of the
public debt He was received by Of
ticers and soldiers and the curator and
another civilian official of the castle.
An officer carried six immense iron
keys and led the way into the mighty
fortress-one of the strongest in the
world Arrived in the bottom of the
tower the party climbed up narrow,
winding staircase until at last mass
i've door, made of riveted plates of
iron. barred the way. Two keys were
needed to open it. 1t disclosed a pitch
dark room, through which the officer
CROPPED until he found a great door of
iron gratings, which, as it was thrown
open, screeched complaints that
showed how long it had been rusted in
its hinges.
The little party was ushered inside
and the grating locked again carefully
behind them, shutting them in from
the outer world. Then the escort lit
candles and by their light could be
discerned another triple locked door of
solid iron, more formidable even than
the first.
This led to the treasure. In black
hole of vault it lay, incased in 1,200
great chests, each containing $4,000.
To count this immense sum coin by
coin was evidently impossible. 1t
would have taken weeks of unremitting
labor. So after a consultation the MEM
Der of the reichstag first went care
fully over all the chests and satisfied
himself that the seals were intact
Then he selected several chests at ran
dom and officials and laborers hauled
them down and weighed them. 1t was
known that the normal weight of each
chest should be about eighty-seven
pounds. Finding that the weights
agreed, more chests were hauled out
and opened. The gold coins lay inside,
packed away in heavy canvas bags.
Each of these bags in turn was laid
on scale that had been fixed" that
is, sealed weights were on the beam
and the beam itself was made fast
so that the scale could not possibly be
made TO balance unless each bag was
of the correct weight
After the bags had been thus weighed
some of them were picked out, again
at random, and the seals broken and
their contents poured out. Careful
count of all these sample bags having
turned out satisfactorily, the gold was
put back and sealed, after which the
chests were refilled. nailed up and
sealed in their turn. Then the labor
ers carried each one back to the exact
place in the pile whence it had been
taken.
Every step of the count had been
watched closely by officers, and elab-
crate notes made of everything that
was done. After the chests had been
returned to their places and everything
pronounced correct, the officers locked
the great doors, and the party, still
escorted by soldiers bearing candles
for no daylight enters the julius tower
climbed carefully down the danger
Gus stairs into the Subterranean vaults.
Here it was necessary to stoop and,
finally, to crawl, in order to make the
prescribed examination of the walls.
The great war treasure was hidden
away from the immense war indemnity
II, 1871. The money was TAX
en- from the immense war indemnify
which Germany made France pay, and
when the $50, 100000 was laid away a
law was passed to make it available
only for the purpose of mobilizing the
army and navy Immediately in case
of need.
But the conditions of war have
so much in thirty years that,
great as the sum is, it would not last
FOR more than a few days. This fact
adds to the discomfort with which Ger
many has received the confirmation
Of the old tale that this huge fortune
is actually locked up by the govern
ment.
Herman Pachnicke himself voices
this discomfort by saying in his re-
port:
rs it wise and useful to allow 120,-
900, 900 marks to lie idle and dead and
thus to lose annually from 1900. 900 to
!, 100000 marks in interest alone? The
present, with its developed finance sys-
tens, will consider this question differ
emily from the way in which it was
viewed in the past. Germany certainly
is the only power which owns such q
hidden treasure. How much would we
have today if we had put out this 120.-
BOO, 900 marks on interest thirty years
ago."