Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1883 — BANK NOTE PAPER. [ARTICLE]

BANK NOTE PAPER.

How It Is Made at the Dalton (Mess.) Government Mill. [From the Boston Herald.] Excepting the mechanical, material and productive features, which are superintended by Murray Crane, this mill is under the control of the Treasury department. The various orders posted around it all bear the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury. The establishment even has a small array of treasury girls employed in it—some eighteen or twenty in number—who come from all sections of the country. They earn about $3 per day, and some of them live in the neighboring town of Pittsfield and drive to and from their work during this charming season of the year. The duties of these girls are, not only to count the sheets, but to examine each one closely and reject all imperfect ones. The other Government employes consist of one Superintendent, a Captain of the Watch, four watchmen, one register man and one laborer. The position of the register man is all important. An automatic register at the end of the machine registers every sheet as it is cut off and laid down. He takes them away in even hundreds, and then they are immediately counted in the drying-room. In all the various processes of finishing, which follow up to the moment of shipment, every sheet is counted. More than all this, they are again counted upon their receipt at the Treasury department in Washington.- If, by any cause whatever, any one of these various counts fails to correspond with the original automatic count on the machine on which the paper was made, there is a lively search for the missing sheet. Something of an idea of the fidelity with which the paper is guarded may be imagined when it is stated that while the average daily product is sufficient to make 500,000 bank bills, yet not a single one has ever been lost during the five years since the contract was awarded to the Cranes. "But why should they be so particular about the loss of an insignificant sheet of paper?” will be asked. The explanation is a reasonable and easy one. The great protection of the Government against counterfeiting lies jn the paper here made, and on which all the bills, bonds, gold and silver certificates Mid everything of a security nature, are printed. The distinctive feature is the introduction of colored silk threads into the body of the paper while in the process of manufacture, in combination with a distributed fiber of many colors. The threads are red and blue in color, and the fiber is of various colors, as described, and they are introduced while the paper is in the pulp and carried along with it to the end of the machine, where it is delivered as actual paper. This simple contrivance is effectual against imitation, and has been more fatal than anything else to the professional counterfeiters. However skillful they may be in imitating the engraving of the bill, they cannot duplicate this peculiar, paper. For this reason, the rule is imperative that every sheet turned off-from th e-machine must be produced or its absence satisfactorily accounted for. The silk employed for the purpose is partly manufactured in Pittsfield and partly in Connecticut. When the sheets are finished there are a ceitain number of thousands packed in strong, iron-hooped boxes, which are transported under guard to the Adams express office in Pittsfield, and the express company then becomes res;;O bsiblo ior their delivery 7 to the Treasury department in Washington. There is a rather formidable looking armory on the main floor of the mill, and there would most likely be considerable ammunition spent on the Government side before any band of midnight raiders could make their escape with any of the coveted paper. The paper on which the new postal notes are printed is ajso manufactured at this mill, under the immediate supervision of Murray Crane.