Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-05-15

place money where thieves can
not reach it, and the redemp-
ton division of the Treasury re-
vcals many interesting stories of lost
wealth.
The chief of the division had che mover
experience He was forced to make an
examination OF a dogs stomach ia salts
~ himself that it contained the remains
Of a twerty-doliar bill which tie canine
had chewed ur TIE dog stomach was
sent TO AIr Schricner. accompanied by
let,er in which the writer stated that ms
dog Fritz had swallowed Il twenty dol
lar bill while he was playing with h!m
The aforesaid Fritz was not regarded
by the owner as being worth so, SO he
was shot and lbe stomach sent to the
Treasury Department To See If the !'ill
could be put together sufficiently 10 be
redeemed. With the assistance of the eX-
perts in The division Of redemption The
badly cheWed up bill was taken out ana
il was redeemed at its face value.
And this Is the way We have TO go about
getting money together to redeem 1t.
said uae Of the experts. 1t comes mere
in cNery shape, and not infteqUerty en-
cireiy ,dl OF shape. and il sometimes
takes the greatest care and most delicate
work 10 get il n such condition that we
are able TO >at'sfy ourselves tat some
effort is 10; benz made to sW.ndle your
Uncle Sam OFT Of good money. We have
our rules for redemption and these rules
are strictly adhered to. Somehow calves
appear to- have the inside track on al
animals for destroying money. and they
literally eat it up when they get hold
of il, while goats give the stuff "a lick
and a promise, so to speak. and 1t is
found in large pieces when sent here for
redemption Goats do not chew it up fine
like other animals. 1t is not often that
dogs get hold of money but frequently
pigs ard hogs make sad havoc with a roll
OF bills. Whenever there is Il reasonable
doubt about the genuinsness Of 4 bill,
that doubt is in favor Of the party max
inS the claim
Here are the rules. briefly, for the re
demption of mutiiated money: For piece
of currency greater than tWo-fifths and
less than three-ffths of the original note
one half the face value of the note is
given. For a piece as great as three
ffths, the whole value of the note is
given For a piece two-fifths in size of
the original nothing is given. But ths
last provision is limited by the law, which
gives discretion to the Treasury Depart
ment to give full value for note if the
owner can prove to the satisfaction of
w
the authorities that the note. or the miss
ing part of it, was destroyed This last
provision opens the door TO possible fraud
and many are the efforts made by dis
honest persons to take advantage of it.
The fragments of money which come
here for redemption are turned over 10
an expert and sorted out under the micro
scope for Identification. They are picke
apart and each piece assigned to it's pace
like a puzzle. This is usually done on
glass and the pieces are placed between
glass so that they can be measured SO
as to ascertain how much of the note is
there.
Unless there was the most perfect sys-
TEN here we would be frequently taken in
by dishonest peop'e. A man in Kansas
sent in the halves of some small bills with
the edges nicely charred. accompanied by
an affidavit that he had put the money in
his pocket hung his coat on a fence and
that the coat had been burned. 1t hap
pened that the other halves of these notes
had been redeemed for a money broker in
New York more than two years previous,
fined 81 900. a Chicago man sent in frag-
ments of two twenty dollar bills and one
ten-dollar bill with affidavit saving
that the other had been destroyed With
the same mail a Chicago banker sent the
other halves. 1t was proved that the fel-
low who made the affidavit was a swim
dler and got two years in the pen. There