Show MILLIONS UXCALLED FOR Forgotten Government Bond Interest Inter-est Constantly Accumulating A number pf snug fortunes are lying in the United States treasury waiting I for somebody to step in and claim them This money is due on bonds long ago called in Some of them have never been cashed by the holders On the old debt which embraces all loans I made to the government up to 1837 121000 is still owing Since that date more than 1000000 has accumulated being uncalled for by the persons entitled en-titled to i either through negligence or for other reasons A considerable fraction of this great sum says Yeno wines News Is now held by the treasurer treas-urer of the United States In the shape of checks Interest on registered bonds is paid by check but as people are constantly changing their addresses i I I not infrequently happens that track is lost for a while of an Individual bondholder I I bond-holder Under such circumstances the i t quarterly interest checks are retained as they fall due and in the course of time pile up They are kept for an I Indefinite period and are good forever I INTEREST CHECKS There are such checks in the treasurers treasur-ers office now which have accumulated accumu-lated during more than ten years On the other hand knowing that they are always good for the money they represent repre-sent people often keep these interest checks putting them aay and hoarding hoard-ing them just as if they were so much cash Only the other ay a batch of forty checks for 1 each was received at the treasury The owner had simply put them away as they came in year after year The millionaire is commonly represented repre-sented as engaged in clipping coupons from his bonds This is an egregious error Rich men as a rule do not hold coupon bonds Such bonds are not safe property They are always payable to bearer like treasury notes I lost the government will not replace I re-place them Accordingly for the sake of security people are constantly exchanging ex-changing them for registered bonds The sum total of coupOn bonds Is now about 70000000 mostly in the hands of small holders JF REGISTERED 1BONDS Registered bonds are rich mens I property par excellence At present about 200000000 worth Qf them is held I by private individuals Of this great sum 87000000 or not far from one I half is owned by 1000 persons roughly speaking whose holdings average SSO 000The I The names of these fortunate individuals indi-viduals are kept secret by the treasury treas-ury Some of the fortunes possessed I in this shape are enormous Among the greatest holdings are those of the Vanderbllts Old William H Vander bit had 45000000 in registered bonds I at one time I About twenty years ago 40000 worth of the consols of 1865 and 1867 were stolen in Havana The thief altered them by erasing the name from the face and sold them to ignorant persons per-sons They were for 1000 each Ever since then they have been coming into In-to the treasury through banks and otherwise Of course they were useless use-less to the holders being registered and only payable to the original owner orIgnal The original owner lost nothing of course All he had to do was to notify the secretary of the treasury giving an affidavit and a bond of indemnity and the stolen consols were replaced That Is the advantage of registered regstered bonds The number of such bonds that have been lost and stolen is astonishing aston-ishing A list of theM numbering I I nearly 1000 Is printed and circulated by the government THE CAVEAT LIST I is called the caveat list and Is designed to warn bankers and others against accepting securities of the numibers mentioned Some time ago a report came from Indianapolis of a bond that was said to have been destroyed de-stroyed Affidavits etc being furnished furnish-ed a new one was issued to replace it Ten years later that identical security se-curity was forwarded to the treasury from Holyoke Mass It had been found in a lot of waste I paper at a paper mill There was no question of fraud in the case the owner lost it and supposed that it had been burned Bonds which have been partly destroyed de-stroyed occasionally come t6 the treasury treas-ury for redemption Some of them are partly burned Small holders often hide their bonds like money in parlor stoves When the fire is lighted light-ed up go the securities in smoke If a few charred fragments remain they are forwarded to Washington I enough Is left for the purpose of identification I iden-tification the owner is reimbursed Not long ago about 1000 In seven thirty Interestbearing notes was received re-ceived for redemption In a partly burned burn-ed condition The owner had put them away for safekeeping among the rafters raft-ers of his house which caught fire From Alenandrla Va only the other day came two bonds for 15000 each which had been called in ten years ago so that interest on the amount was entirely losst during that period Apparently the possessor had just waked up to the fact that the investment invest-ment was no longer profitable READY FOR REDEMPTION A great many bonds called for redemption re-demption twenty years and more ago have never been presented for payment pay-ment Some of them have doubtless been put away and forgotten I is imagined that others have been lost at sea together with their owners The quantity of gold and silver in coin and bullion sunk from wrecks in the ocean w H q do amounts to many millions of dollars In the course of a century I Only about 2000000 worth of bonds is possessed by comparitively poor persons and these in sums of 500 or less That amount is divided up among I nearly 10000 individuals About thirty years ago Uncle Sam lent a lot of money to help build various var-ious transcontinental railways I was understood that the companies would refund the cash as soon as they got well started There is little likelihood like-lihood that any considerable part of i will ever be paid There is still owing 64000UOO of original indebedness plus 70000000 of interest To raise this money for the use of the railways the government issued bonds at different times from 1865 to 1869 They were to run for thirty years at 6 per cent The treasury is still paying this big interest which is more tnan twice what the loan is worth today to-day This means a clear loss of many millions of a lars In January of next year the first batch of these Pacific railway bonds mature and to redeem them will require 2362000 I Uncle Sam could collect this huge bad debt he would be comfortably off at present instead of feeling horribly poor |