The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-19
UNCLE SAWS MONEY
THE SIFEG UIRDS THAT HEDG E
 ABOUT ITS M4NUFACIURE

Care With Which Even the shavings of the Peculiar Paper Used Are Han- dled-Countine and Accounting the | Treasured Sheets.
 Uncle Sans paper money has US l birth in the bureau of engraving and printing in Washington. Here a corps | of engravers cut it's lines into plates ot steel. Five hundred men aind Wom- i en are in one room. It is the largest printing office in the world Here are struck from these plates the notes which we give the butcher and the baker. Each steel plate when not in actual use is stored away in great burglar proof vault to which only the highest officials know the combination
 At the side of each printing press is a little indicator like bicycle cyclome-
 ter. which keeps tally of every piece of
 paper money printed. Thus is Uncle
 Sam kept informed as to the exact
 number of paper notes of all denomi-
 ma tions which leave his presses daily.
 If there is any secret which Uncle
 sam jealously guards it is the process
 of manufacturing the fiber paper upon
 which his money notes are printed.
 He pays a Massachusetts firm big
 price for it. and this firm does it's work
 under the surveillance of a govern ment agent. The paper is manufac-
 tured of the finest rags, cleaned, boiled and mashed into pulp. As it is rolled into thin sheets silk threads are intro duced into it by a secret process These are the distinguishing marks making imitation of the paper we'll nigh impossible.
 The sheets of paper, already counted twice and placed in uniform packages at the paper mill. are stored in treas ury vault and issued to the bureau of engraving and printing as wanted, Be- fore leaving the treasury they are
  ceiving official at the bureau must re- ceipt for them. Then the bundles are unwrapped, and the sheets are counted twenty-eight times by corps of Wo- men. This is to insure that each print CT gets the recorded number-no mere, no less. Before any employee Of the division in which this paper is kept can leave for home each night he must eX- hibit to a watchman at the door pass certifying that every fragment of every sheet passing through his fingers has been accounted for.
 If one sheet of this precious paper be lost, the entire force of men and wo- men having access to the room where the displacement has occurred are kept in, like so many school children, to find it. Each sheet is issued from the vault for the printing of definite amount of money upon it. If the lost sheet were intended to ultimately rep resent S4 000 worth of notes, the group | of employees to whom the responsibil- | ity of it's displacement has been traced | must make good that amount if they | cannot locate it within reasonable | time.
  sheets containing the printed money ! counted after leaving the presses. | Then they are sealed i'll packages of | GOO, plactd on racks in a drying room l If 13O degrees temperature, unpaeked, thoroughly examined, smoothed in | powerful hydraulic presses and packed | n wooden cases. These cases are hauled to the treasury in an ironcad | wagon. Six guards. heavily armed, | accompany this wagon whenever it makes a trip.
 No attempt to steal Uncle Sans mon- " while undergoing any of these stages of manufacture has yet been detected As matter of fact, the money would be practically useless, for ts printing is not completed until after t makes this guarded journey to the reasury There the finishing touch is added in the printing of the colored | seal upon the face of each note. With l he six sealing presses the same pre- cautions are taken as with the two hundred and fifty big money presses in he other building Each sheet com ng from the former has a row Of notes printed upon it. The sheets are put through small machines, operated by ,lrls, who cut out the individual notes. Oven the small strips. falling like havings from their machines, must be arefully collected, sent to the bureau f engraving and printing and there ,oiled into pulp. An employee found with even one of these ribbons of waste aper Is liable to Imprisonment for fifteen years and fine of 5000.
 Between these different processes the apcr money has been counted and re- ounted six additional times, Finally he single notes are placed in stacks of co, with all of the blue numbers print q on their faces in sequence. They re then wrapped in paper, labeled, ealed with red wax and stored in the reat treasury vaults, Thus each iece of paper money now in circula- ion has been officially counted sixty hree times
 In our hints the system of account lE for the blank metal out of which l ne finished coins are stamped, of | coping tally on the coininS machines work, of counting the finish q product, of packing it, of sealing it cloth bags of transporting 1t under ] uard, of counting it many times again nd finally of storing it away is pract-