Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1873 — Mutilated Notesin the Treasury Department. [ARTICLE]

Mutilated Notesin the Treasury Department.

Farther on we come to the room devoted to the counting of the mutilated money received by mail, for, in addition to the receipts by express, an average of one hundred packages is received each day by mail. The money so received is in much worse condition than that which comes by express, for the reason that currency which is mutilated is redeemable only by the Treasurer, and usually comes in small amounts by mail; while the various assistant treasurers, depositaries and depositary banks are agents for the redemption of currency merely soiled and defaced, which is forwarded by them to the Treasurer by express. The money feeeived by mail comes in all sorts of damaged conditions, and has all imaginable kinds of horrible or ludicrous histories. Sometimes it has been swallowed by a calf or goat, which, finding a pocket-book carelessly left within its reach, proceeded to regale itself with the salt which the leather had absorbed from the perspiration, until the book was forced open and the contents exposed. Tlie green notes had an inviting and familiar appearance, and the confiding animal eagerly swallowed them, and so sealed liis own death-warrant *, for the owner, returning and seeing the wreck of the pocket-book, rightly conjectured where his money hat! disappeared, put the unwitting thief to death, and recovered the half-digested notes. Others have been found on the bodies of drowned or murdered men, weeks perchance after their death. Frequently they have been so burned that nothing remains but the charred resemblance of notes, so frail and brittle that a slight tmtch wrtt change them to cinders. Sometimes a note is sent which some drunken fool, lord for the hour of untold riches, to show his disregard for money, has used to light his cigar, but which, upon the return of reason, he has hastened' to send to the Treasurer, with an humble and penitent request that It be exchanged for a new note with which to pay for rood and lodging. Or it may be that it is one which a termagant wife has thrown into the fire to spite her hen-pecked mate, who has rescuea It before it was entirely devoured by the flames; or one that some luxurious mouse has stolen from the money-drawer and used to line his nest. Once a poor Frenchman sent a handful of minute fragments of notes, With the statement that they had “mot with tbfe accident of a little dog.” Our Fenian friends are prone to put lighted pipes in the same pocket in which they carry money. The consequence Is that the Treasurer receives for redemption a great many greenbacks with round holes burnt through them here and there, and looking for all the world like bullet-riddled ensigns of the Irish Republic. Some stories are so frequently repeated as to excite grave doubts of their entire truthfulness. For instance, a note which is so badly damaged as to call for a severe stretch of the rules in order to make it worth anything, is pretty sure to be said t° belong to a poor, hard-working widow with an aston ishtng number of children, for whom the writer, in the fullness of his charitable heart; has forwarded it for redemption. All these notes, so variously mutilated, must be restored as nearly as may be to their original shapes before their value can be definitely ascertained. Here, again, the skillful fingers of women are called into requisition. Some of the women employed in this work have, by long experience, become exceedingly expert in pasting and restoring notes. Fragments which are so burned as to seem to others only charred pieces of paper, or so minute as to be almost indistinguishable, under their patient hands again assume the semblance of notes, so that their kinds and denominations can be readily distinguished. Notes which have been nibbled by mice into such tiny fragments that most persons would say tliat it was beyond human power to restore them to their original shapes, are arranged and restored bit by bit,'until after perhaps a labor of days-they begin to assume their former forms, and at last are restored with sufficient perfection to warrant their redemption. These ladies have made an art in ■which they have no rivals. It would require years to educate others to the same degree of skill and knowledge, and it would be difficult to estimate the embari rassment which their loss would entail on the Department— From “An Hour Among (he Greenbacksin Scribner's for April.