MACERATING $10,000,000 OF MONEY
The banks of large cities send in their soiled money weekly or monthly and receive fresh notes in exchange, the government paying transportation both ways. This soiled money is made into pulp, which is sold to paper-makers at about $40 a ton.
It is only the old money that is counterfeited. Counterfeiters rumple and muss their money to give it the appearance of being long in use. Women are especially skilled in detecting counterfeit money. If among the returned coins or notes one single piece proves to be counterfeit, the amount is deducted from the salary of the examiner. Yet this great government pays these women less than two-thirds what it would pay to men for the same service, if men could do it at all.
From the government of the United States it would seem that the world had a right to expect that ideal justice which each soul shall receive when it stands in the presence of Eternal Justice.
The United States Treasury has charge of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, where all the paper money, postage, revenue stamps, and bonds are made.
Bills, when sent from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, require the signatures of officials of the bank from which they are to be issued before becoming legal tender.
Secretary Shaw has at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving his personal representative, who locks up the plates, sees to the minutiæ of things, so that even the smallest scrap of paper bearing government printing must be shown, or the house is closed and search made till it is found.
The custom officers who insult and browbeat you at the port are of this department. Once on arriving at New York, after being very ill all the way from Antwerp, I had declared I had nothing dutiable, yet in spite of that every article in my trunk was laid out on the dirty floor of the custom-house. When I saw the bottom of the trunk, I said: “Well, you have only proved what I told you. I believe you think because I am trembling from weakness that I am frightened?” “Yes, that is about the size of it; there is your trunk, you may put the things back.” “No,” I said, “my baggage is checked through, and I am not able to pack it.” I saw with some satisfaction the custom-house officer do the packing. It had required my best efforts to get the stuff into the trunk, but he did it.
This country has very silly custom-house rules on personal clothing and small articles of art and vertu, and the average artistic standard of dress and home ornamentation of the country is lowered by these ridiculous embargoes.