This perfection of mathematical movement is acquired only by long practice and by one order of intellect. There are persons who can never acquire this unerring accuracy of mind and motion combined. There is a lady sitting here who has been in this division since it was organized, in 1862, who can, upon demand, count fifty thousand notes in one day. As the department hours of work are from nine to three o’clock, and half an hour is taken at noon for lunch, these fifty thousand notes must all be counted in the space of five and a half hours. This is at a rate of nine thousand and ninety notes each hour, one hundred and fifty each minute and two and a half each second. The same lady will count four thousand legal tender notes in twenty minutes. These lady counters, with a number of their sister peers from the Redemption Division, perform numerous journeys for Uncle Samuel whenever the Treasury Offices in other cities need a “looking over.” At such times they are “detailed” to go and count the Government funds there.
Through the fingers of these ladies has passed every note—legal tender or fractional—which has been issued by the United States since the beginning of the war of the rebellion. Every note, ever touched or seen, with all the gold-notes and the millions of imperfect bonds and notes never put in circulation—every one has passed through these same deft fingers. The total value of this vast amount, up to July, 1872, was about two thousand nine hundred million dollars, more than two hundred and twenty-three millions of which was in postal and fractional currency.
As soon as the new money is counted, it is again put away—the legal tenders in strong paper wrappers, the fractional currency in paper boxes. All are sealed, put on a hand-cart, and rolled off to the vaults of the cash division, whither we still, you and I, pursue our little dollar.
Passing through the cashier’s office and the superb Marble Cash-room (to which we will soon return), at the opposite end we reach one almost exclusively occupied by the iron vault of the United States Treasury. The double iron doors swing slowly back, and we stand in the money vault of the nation. It looks light and airy as a china-closet. The sealed packages, lining the shelves to the ceiling, are full of money. I hold a small package in my hand of crisp, stamped paper, tied with common twine, and “take it coolly” when the keeper of these coffers tells me that the string ties in one hundred millions of dollars. It doesn’t seem much!
On the shelf of a cosy closet are piled some little white bags which have done a deal of travelling. They hold the gold captured from Jefferson Davis’s fleeing trains, taken from the banks of Richmond. You know the banks of Richmond have been very anxious to get their money back, and have sent numerous messengers after it. A small obstacle, in the shape of a fact, separates them from the object of their desire. This gold was rifled from the mint in New Orleans, and before it came to the banks of Richmond belonged to the Treasury of the United States.
In this vault is packed away all the money not needed for circulation. A large portion of the money which lines these shelves has never been charged to the Treasurer on the books of the department, therefore, technically, is not yet money, although all ready for use. Every kind of note which the ingenuity of Uncle Sam and his servants ever devised, is here packed and guarded. The compartments of the safe not affording sufficient space, the floor is piled—and as carelessly, apparently, as if with potato or apple bags; but not in fact. The value of every bag and package is known, and not one cent could be taken without being swiftly discovered and pursued. Piles on piles of little bags and packages! this is all, and yet they hold five hundred millions of dollars. Little bags and packages these are, all, and yet for them men toil, struggle, sin—sell their bodies and their souls!
On each of the doors of this iron vault are two burglar-proof locks, of the most complicated construction, each on a combination different from the rest. But two or three persons know these combinations, and no person knows the combination to the locks on both doors. Thus it is impossible that they should be fraudulently opened, save by collusion between two persons who know the combination. This is but one of the safeguards which the Government sets about its treasures.
A few paces from the door of this vault is the elevator communicating with the room of the agent of Adams’ Express Company, on the basement floor below. The motive power of this elevator is Potomac-water, from the water-mains. Two iron pistons, about eight inches in diameter, attached to the elevator platform, one on each side, move smoothly up and down in perpendicular iron cylinders. A turn of the handle admits the water into the cylinder beneath the pistons, which are forced up by the pressure, and with them the elevator. A reverse movement of the handle allows the water to escape from the cylinders, and the elevator descends. Its movements are noiseless, and it is managed with remarkable ease. Up and down, this servant, swift and silent, bears the moneys of the people. It is just descending, piled high with packages, some directed to banks, railroad and manufacturing companies. Others are addressed to assistant treasurers and depositors of the United States. Much is going to replace the old money already sent back to the Treasury for destruction. All will be carried away, as it was brought in its neophite state, by Adams’ Express Company, which is bound by contract to transact all the vast money transportation business of the Government. This contract confers mutual advantage, both on the Company and the Government. To the latter, because it obtains transportation at a much lower rate than it could otherwise do, paying but twenty-five cents for each thousand dollars transported; while, at even this per cent., the Company can grow rich on the monopoly of the vast money transportation business of the Government of the United States.
Alas! for our dollar that went forth from the paternal door—as many another child has done—unsullied, only to return at a later day from its contact with the world, begrimed, demoralized, despoiled. Where is our pretty dollar, fresh and pure? Every delicate line defaced, tattered, filthy, worn out—this wretched little rag, surely, cannot be it! And yet it is. This is what the world’s hard hand has made our dollar.