Madison, Wis.
What gave rise to the expression, “There is a skeleton in the closet,” and just what does it mean?
Alice.
Answer.—There is an old story that a soldier once wrote to his mother, who complained of her unhappiness, asking her to get some sewing done by some one who had no care or trouble. Coming in her search to one who, she thought, must be content and happy, this lady took her to a closet containing a human skeleton. “Madam,” said she, “I try to keep my sorrows to myself, but know that every night I am compelled by my husband to kiss this skeleton of him who was once his rival. Think you, then, I can be happy?” The inference is certainly too clear to need interpretation.
FINANCES OF CONFEDERATE STATES.
Ames, Iowa.
What was the amount of the Confederate debt at the close of the war? Was their currency a legal tender for all debts? How much did they issue? How much, if any, remained in the Confederate treasury at the close of the war?
Casey and Underhill.
Answer.—1. According to the “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” by Jefferson Davis, the foreign debt of the Confederate States at the close of the war was £2,200,000, or about $11,000,000. Besides this, the debt at home, on the books of the Register of the Treasury on Oct. 1 1864, amounted to $1,147,970,208. Davis estimates that balances in the hands of absent officers would have reduced the total public debt to $1,126,381,095, of which $541,340,090 consisted of funded debt and the balance unfunded debt, or treasury notes. What further debt was created between Oct. 1, 1864, and the downfall of the Confederacy in April, 1865, it is not easy to ascertain. Judging from the expenditure of the six months next preceding Oct. 1, 1864, the debt must have been increased at least $450,000,000. Davis says: “The appropriations called for by the different departments for the six months ending June 30, 1865, amounted to $438,416,504,” which, taken together with the amount of unexpended appropriations and the small proportion raised by taxation, confirms our estimate, so that the total home and foreign debt of the Confederacy at the close of the war, omitting any claims for advances made by individual States, must have been about $1,587,000,000. 2. The treasury notes of the Confederacy were made receivable for all public debts or taxes except export duty on cotton. The terms of at least one issue, as given by Mr. Davis, “receivable for all debts or taxes except the export duty on cotton,” would constitute them a legal tender. 3. In December, 1863, this currency in circulation in those States amounted to “more than $600,000,000.” A considerable part of this was funded in Confederate bonds, but new issues or reissues swelled the amount again to about the old figures before the war closed. 4. Just how much specie remained in the hands of the Secretary of the Confederate Treasury when Johnston surrendered is not known, but it must have been a trifling sum; for when Jefferson Davis committed the treasury chest to General Joe Johnston’s safe-keeping, according to that officer’s statement on pages 408 and 409 of his “Narrative of the Rebellion,” it contained but $39,000 in silver, a considerable part of which he took and divided among his troops. The fleeing members of the Cabinet, no doubt, got away with the most of the gold and foreign bills.