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Show rapidly as is generally supposed in ordinary ordi-nary circulation. Therefore when a person per-son rinds a coin which from its date it only two or three years old, that has a very worn appearance, it has undoubtedly undoubted-ly been treated to a 'sweat. These coins will always be found short weight, and people will save money if they watch the date and condition of tha pieces they receive. "The process of removing gold by an acid bath is now resorted to more generally gen-erally than the old sweating system, as It is harder to detect the shortage in the coins. On 'sweated' coin the figures and milling are worn, while on the other the designs aro not at nil injured. To detect hhortage in the latter coin weigh thein." New York Herald. THEFTS FROM GOLD COIN. How I'ncle Sam Has lieen Uobbed by Ingenious In-genious Italians and i'oles. The diked States nb-treasury officials offi-cials of this city are greatly annoyed at present by tho amount of light weight gold coin that is coming into their cof-lers, cof-lers, Tho gold is ail short in value, and though there is no apparent difference in the size of the various pieces or their weight to the unpracliced observer, many of them have been reduced one-third one-third cf their value. The officials do not hesitate to accuse persons of robbing the government by reducing the weight of tho coin, and the government lias even gone so far as to take steps to stop tiie robbery. Assistant Treasurer Roberts said that many of tha $.) gold pieces were fifty cents short, and some of the $10 pieces were worth only $9.'o. The $1 coins did not suffer much, because it wmld hardly pay to bother with them. In every case that his attention had been called to the face of tho coin had not been worn or mutilated. The figures and designs presented lines as sharp as new ones, and the milling hadn't been disturbed. These coins were, however, all short from twenty-five to fifty cents in value. These facts have caused the officials to think that there aro persons at work in the city who are making a regular business of defrauding the government. gov-ernment. The gold in these cases has been removed re-moved from the coin by means of 3 chemical process, which does not appear to affect the general appearance of tha money. An old treasury official, in speaking of the fraud, gave me some interesting facts concerning this species of robbery, j "There. . . half a dozen ways of getting gold oil coins," said he, "but ttm two most in vogue are those where acid is used, and in the 'sweating' process. The, latter is most in vogue among Polish Jews und Italians, who make a regular business of it. i "In the first place they secure a stout i canvas bag and fill it about half full of : gold coins. The top of the bag is tied, and then the coins are shaken together 1 for hours at a time. The friction of one coin rubbing against the other wears oil considerable gold, and it is deposited ut the bottom of the bag. Each time $200 worth of gold coin is treated to tha i 'sweating' process tho Italian will prob-! prob-! ably secure $20 worth of dust. The ! coins when taken out look somewhat old : as if they had been in circulation a ! long time but they will always be nc-i nc-i ceptcd by persons not used to handling I money. j "To a person familiar with the frauds, I however, it is always easy to detect a j coin that has boen treated to a 'sweat.' j The Italian will always take new coin j for the purjiose, and if a person will only j stop to think he can also detect a lighl I cuia. Thu nulil uvea not wear off ui |
