Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-08-10
WASTE IS EXAMINED.
Women Experts Go Through Treas
 ury Department Baskets.
Consistently Busy Searching fOr Amy EAonds That May Have Found Eav1r Way Into the Piles
 of Refuse.

of Refuse.
 sfOficial examiner of the waste bas- ket"-such is the title conferred on two women at the treasury. Nor is the title 8 vain one. The women are classed as "exDerts" and their duties are reckoned important, says 8 Washington report.
 From nine to four o'clock each day, except Sunday, they may be found in the basement of the big and dirty gray brown building wherein Uncle Sam's sinews of commerce and war, peace and prosperity are kept. Hour by hour they carefully go through the big piles of waste paper dumped out for their crit ical inspection from the capacious maws of the hundreds of baskets, which are supposed to catch the litter of officials and clerks, from Secretary Shaw down. It Is the word supposed" that gives these experts employment Too often a document or paper of value slips inad vertently into the baskets. and were it not for the watchful eyes of these wom- en would find it's way into the fiery fur mace of destruction.
 People have been wont to joke about the ridiculous titles that certain gov- ernment employees bear, and in popu- lar farce of few years ago there was character who styled himself the official cleaner of government cuspidors. But there are, in fact, two official examiners of waste baskets in the treasury depart msnt.
 The necessity of employees of this kind will be realized at once, when 1t is known that drafts, vouchers and bonds worth anywhere from $1 up to $10,000, and even more, are handed about and sent from one room to another as though they were of no more value than so much cambric. Frequently the care lessness of messenger permits one of these slips of paper, representing many hundreds, and even thousands, of dol- lars, to fall into a waste basket. A sud- den gust of wind may carry a bond from a chiefs desk and toss it into the same receptacle, while hurried official may tear in half draft for a large sum of money and throw the pieces into the basket. Until the adoption of the pres ent system of examining the contents Of these baskets at the end of each day all mishaps of this sort were past immedi- ate correction. While they did not al- ways result in the actual loss of the face value of each paper, they invariably caused a great deal of trouble and an- noyance Banks that ordered ship ments of notes failed to get the money until weeks after the time it should have been delivered. Then, again, the disappearance of an important draft or voucher created more or less suspicion as to the honesty of employees and kept the treasurer in constant hot water. Now most of the trouble is avoided through the skill of the lynx-eyed ex- aminers. who examine every article that goes into the baskets.
 There is well regulated system of handling this work. Every basket in the building is numbered, a tag telling in what room and to what clerk it be- longs. Each smploye has two such bas- kets, which are used on alternate days. One set is examined one day and the other set is looked over the following day. The baskets are brought into the examiners room exactly as they are Left by the clerks.
 The general orders throughout the department are that no scrap of paper shall be thrown into basket without being first torn in halves. So the ex- aminers are on the lookout for official looking documents. and especially for papers that have not been torn. All papers of this description are laid aside after being labeled with the number of the basket from which they were taken. 1t frequently happens that much of the stuff picked out in this way is of no value. but not long ago one of the wom- en engaged on this work found $10,- 900 United States bond
 1t is the duty of the charwomen to give casual glance through waste baskets before they are carried to the rooms of the examiners. A few weeks ago the chief clerk of the department threw into his basket worthless cir cular which was folded in the shape of an official document. He failed to dis figure 1t, and the next morning he was somewhat mystified to find the pa per on his desk again. He tossed 1t into the basket second time, but the next morning 1t was on his desk as usual. A third time the process was repeated, and the chief clerk finally learned that the faithful charwoman was the person who consistently res- cued the document that he was anxious to get rid of.
 A Bnrgain.
 It was in the raspberry season, and a freckled, barefooted little girl in torn blue calico gown came Qthe door of