SENATORIAL COURTESY.
"I suppose you will bow to the will of the people," said the friend.
"Of course I will," answered Senator Sorghum; "I'll bow and take off my hat all they want me to. As long as there's no chance of their having their own way it's as little as I can do to be polite."—Washington Evening Star.
The Nation's Conscience Fund.
For Ninety-five Years Persons Who Have Succeeded in Defrauding the Government
Have Coined Remorse into Gold and Sent It to Uncle
Sam, Who Has Received $400,000 in This Manner.
An original article written for The Scrap Book.
For ninety-five years contributions from penitent people throughout America have been flowing into the government's Conscience Fund at Washington. The first contribution of this nature was received in 1811, during the administration of Madison. At the first of this year the sums received from thousands of men and women who confessed that they had defrauded the government amounted to four hundred thousand dollars.
There is a great deal of variety in the character of transgressions, and also in the sums of money turned in to the Conscience Fund. One woman, a few years ago, sent a single one-cent stamp to the Secretary of the Treasury, explaining that she had defrauded the government of that amount of postage. In marked contrast to this contribution was a draft for fourteen thousand dollars, sent to the Conscience Fund by an American living in England.
One peculiarity that is revealed by the letters of repentant citizens is the effort to disguise the identity of the writers. They frequently write in a cramped, unnatural style, or they "print" the letters as children do, or purposely mis-spell words, as is evident when wretched orthography is done in handwriting that is itself indicative of culture.
All these efforts are unnecessary, for the United States government does not divulge the names even when, occasionally, they are frankly signed by the conscience-stricken. To enable the sender to know that his contribution has reached the Conscience Fund, announcement of the amount sent and the nature of the confession is made in the newspapers of the city or town whence the letter was mailed. But no effort is made to discover the identity of the contributor.
Many of the writers are women, but they do not send so much money to the Conscience Fund as the men. Their transgressions, as a rule, involve small transactions. The largest contributions come from smugglers. The remainder is received from persons who have used canceled stamps, or who have sent first-class mail under third-class rates, or persons who have actually stolen articles from Government buildings, forts, or reservations.