New Britain herald., 1921-02-05
SOME JOB TO COUNT
 GOVERNMENTS CASH
Recent TabulatiOn of Funds En-
 tailed Great Amount of Work

Washington. Feb. 5.-A complete
 count of the governments cash has just been made for the first time in twelve years. The total approximated three billion, five hundred million dol lars and included all cash and secur- ities held as reserves against currency outstanding.
 Tho count was made by a special committee Of three. assisted by eight accountants and by fifteen laborers who were used to move around the heavy sacks of gold and silver. The men delved Into great vaults in the Treasury building and took stock oi gold silver and paper money and securities, many of which had not seen the light of day since shortly after William Howard Taft was in- augurated President and a new treas urer of the United States appointed fin 1909.
 The accountants in entering the vautls passed grom-visa ged guards who day and night ''sit on tho lid" to prevent any possible attempts at an unauthorized raid on the Treas- ury- The vaSlts themselves are sup posed to be burglar proof and are of massive concrete and steel construc- tion. The storage sections are kept under seal and this was the first time that some of them had been opened in twelve years. for when John Burke became treasurer after Presi- dent Wilson was first inauEurated the count Of cash in the storage sec- tions which had not been opened since the previous count in 1909.
 The accountants handled money of every possible denomination from the lowly copper to 310,oo0 bills. Many of the bills. particularly those of the larger denominations. such as $I,00o, were in sheets of four each and held as reserve against currency of small CT denominations in circulation. Thousand dollar bills in circulation arc few and each bank in the coun- try is kept supplied by tho Treasury with n list of them with their num- bers so that if perchance any are ex- tracted from the Treasury illegally the holder will have extreme difficulty in realizing on them.
 The count just finished was made necessary by the retirement of John Burke as treasurer and was cornplet- cd in the remarkably short time of three weeks through the use of cleo rtlc counting. machines. Loose coins passed through these machines in. stead Of being counted by hand. as was necessary in tho oldcn days. Paper currency was counted by the piece, but stored coins and currency were counted by the sack or package in cases where tho wrappngs were unbrokcn and the seal on each intact.
 The main supply of the govern mcnt'a money is stored in two large vaults, but there arc a number of smaller ones In the various divisions of the department as we'll as in the cash rooms where cash payments are made by tho government.
 Gold coins stored in the vaults wera counted by weight. Tho gold is kept in sacks, sealed with the trcasurer'i wax seal and containing 5000 each. weighing about IS pounds and : ounces.
 First one sack was weighed and then the others were examined. If both the seal and covering were found intact they were weighed against the first or test sack and if the result was the same were passed and counted. However, if a senl was broken or the sack torn or there was appreciable difference in weight the contents wore counted by the piece
 Standard silver dollars were count cd in the same way as the gold coin. They arc stored in sacks containing 1000 and weighing about 60 pounds. Work on the silver coin was lessened officials said by the governments melting 0o.o0O.000 silver dollars un- der the Pittman act for sale to the British government to relieve the sil- yer famine fin India during the war
 Paper money is stored in paper packages making q cube of about ' F inches each way and containing 4,o00 notes. On each package is stamped the amount and the denomination of the notes inclosed. X wax seal is at taehed. Except where a broken seal or package necessitated an actual count of the contents the paper in the vaults-was counted by the pack age.
 Sealed packages of paper money arc accepted from the bureau of en- gravinE and printing as correct when the wrappinCs are intact because the issue division of the treasury main tains an office in the bureau and in reality counts all the paper money before if leaves tho bureau.
 Coins of smaller denominations-