The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1906-08-24
LOOK OVER WASTE.
PECULIAR DUTIES OF WASHING.
TON TREASURY EMPLOYEES.
An Discarded Paper Gathered up and
Subjected to Systematic Search
Large Sums of Money
Have Thus Been Saved.

Any one who enters the treasury de-
partment at the extreme northern door
on Fifteenth street can, when he gets
at the foot of the short flight of granite
steps and glances into the first room
on the left, observe the manipulation
of the waste paper, gathered up each
day in the treasurer's Office and car
ried from below to undergo eXamina-
ton before it is sold to be remade into
new paper, says the Washington Post.
The presiding genius of this particu-
lar waste-paper room, as it is called, is
Mrs. Mary Warren, a pleasantfaced
and courteous woman, who has been
lingering waste paper for at least
third of a century. She has the as
sistance of two other women, and the
work is by no means light. Our
fingers sometimes get very sore," said
Mrs. Warren, and we have to use
glycerine very often when the days
work is ended to keep our hands soft
and our digits timber"
Sometimes papers of much value
and money of large amounts are found
in the discarded envelopes that find
their way into the waste-paper room.
Mrs. Warren herself received a promo
ton some years ago for discovering
and promptly turning in heavy
amount of money that had been heed
lessly left in it's Enclosure. Checks
have frequently been found among
the waste papers, envelopes, and
boxes that are dumped into the large
wicker baskets preparatory to exam
ination by the trio of diligent search
ers in their humble little room in the
treasury basement.
Sometimes on a pay day, a clerk
when he gets his little envelope, in
hurry to get out and blow in" some
of his cash, fails to extract the full
amount. He tears open his envelope,
thinks he has got all of his salary,
when he has not. The sweepers find
the envelope on the floor, chuck it into
the waste basket, and down it goes
with an abundance of other litter to
Mrs. Warren. She or one of her pains
taking assistants finds ii and the man
who lost it gets it back and is so hap
in honor of the finder.
I'VE don't find as many checks or
greenbacks now as was the case some
years ago. When we do it can easily
be traced to carelessness on the part
of some one" said the chief of the
room. in every case it is an acct
dent, but such accidents can hardly be
nd 70
careless employe who is responsible is
duly cautioned. The fact that such
mishaps are so infrequent now does
not in the least lessen our responsible
ity. We folks down here handle every
piece of paper conscientiously, and II
any sort of valuable matter comes
here in the waste it won't escape com.
ing to light under our scrutiny.
1T strikes me as something of
misnomer to call all this stuff waste"
Mrs. Warren continued. Nothing
goes to waste. The sale of the paper
brings cash into the treasury. Even
the sealing wax that is melted upon
the strings about big envelopes is util-
lied. / believe IL is reused in the
preparation of cement. The thick pa
per boxes are all examined and go out
into the world again to perform some
new service"
In addition to the waste room"
which is under the supervision of the
treasurer, there are two others in the
department. They are under the eagle
eye of Superintendent Rhodes. The
duties are similar TO those just re-
ferred to, but if any of them is more
important than the other it must be
that of the treasurer's office, for there
it is located in close proximity to the
counting room, the cash room, and the
great vaults, with their silver and gold
and greenbacks and bonds and mil.
lions of the nations wealth,