Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-09-30
COUNTY NEWS.
Herald Correspondents Contribute
Interesting Letters.

Your correspondent visited Chi
cage, the great central market, last
week on his annual pilgrimage
that of buying fall and winter mer-
chandise by personally inspecting
the large stock carried by the
gigantic iobbing houses who are
engaged in supplying the require
ments Of the thousands upon thou
sands of merchants throughout the
west, the middle west and the south
and even east to the shores of the
Atlantic. We are thus enabled at
times to secure some exceptional
values, something we are all look
ing for and when we are successful
in gathering in a good bunch of
bargains we IN turn give our
customers the benefit or in other
words it's trade stimulatOr. Hav-
ing concluded our business affairs as
usual we took part of day for sight
seeing; on former occasions we have
visited many points of interest in
the great metropolis. But on this
our last trip we were especially
favored first by meeting and renew
ing the acquaintance of a very in
innate friend of boyhood days, Mr..
John Burke whom we had not met
for many years and our meeting
was of the mutual kind such as can
only be where real friendship exists.
We were accompanied by brother
who was in the city on like mis-
sion as we were. Mr.. Burke holds
a responsible position with the
Northern Trust Co., one of the
largest financial institutions in the
city of Chicago and he assured us
that whenever we were at liberty
he would be only to glad to show us
around the city. It is needless to say
that we accepted his magnanimous
offer, and what was of more inter-
est to us than all else combined in
Guided visit to the United States
sub-treasury privilege that is &C
corded to but few people who visit
Chicago. Mr.. Burke being we'll
known to number Of employees in
the treasury building, gained for
us admission to Uncle Sans store
house for a look at the nations
wealth which otherwise would have
been impossible. Once within the
steel structure inclOsure and the
massive iron gates closed behind us
there could be no means of escape
unless liberated by the guards or
employees for Uncle Sans millions
are securely guarded against an in
vasion of any kind. We were in
PRODUCED to Mr.. Ford, a man of
broad intellectual mind, who is
thoroughly conversant with all the
details connected with the sub
treasury. We were shown every
courtesy by the gentleman and all
the minor details as we'll as the
more important ones were brought
to our attention and explained in an
able manner. We were SHOWN pa
per currency of the $4,000 and
$4,000 denomination. But they
forgot to give us one of the latter as
a souvenir of our visit to the sub
treasury, and we thought perhaps
we would be making ourselves too
familiar, so did not remind them of
their oversight. We were next shown
into tho oOr1 no ,.t1ooop+C xuboro Tho
gold reserve is kept, one of these
we were informed contained TWEEN
ty millions of dollars all in sacks,
each containing $4,000. Another
compartment we were told held
trife less and contained sixteen
millions of dollars in five and ten
dollar denomination in sacks of five
and ten thousand dollars; we were
asked to lift one of the sacks con-
tanning 5000 in gold and Judging
its weight we felt certain it weighed
more than sack Of flour and were
told that it weighed about rs lbs.
We were next shown into COM
partment that contained refined
gold that had been taken in on the
day of our visit; our informant did
not know the exact amount but said
that the banks that sent it in had
stood loss of five thousand and
about five hundred dollars on it.
We saw currency stacked up much
after the style in which we have
seen bailed hay piled up. We also
saw the device they use for counting
coin and demonstration of it's
great utility as labor saving dew
ice was made for our benefit, 5000
in silver half dollars was counted
and sacked in less time than it takes
to tell it. The half hour or more
spent in the sub-treasury was of
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