| Show THE WORK OP OF COUNTING the money stored in the united states sub treasury building on wall street is now being weighed and counted and this is rather a more serious undertaking than the average citizen would suppose from his own experience at taking account of funds ane necessity for the count arises from the fact that assistant treasurer C J canda is about to retire from office to be succeeded by judge A mccue the retiring assistant treasurer must give an account of all funds that have come into his hands during his incumbency in order that he be may take a receipt irom from his bis successor for the amount turned over to him the count is made by direction of dt the secretary cf the treasury and treasurer at washington it is barred carr ed on under tile the immediate supervision ot of major 1 I F kellne who has under him eight expert counters and wei ghers of money and eight able bookkeepers and accountants coun tants these gentlemen two other gentlemen appointed to look after the interests of of the out oui going and incoming assistant treasurers treasur ers respectively and to represent them in the settlement of any disputed questions that may arise during the progress of the count sixteen laborers to handle the edin and an occasional honest bonest ap representative of the kress these are the only witnesses of this interesting operation the amount ot of money to be oa counted weighed and accounted for asin round Dumbers in notes of various kinds and denominations the count of watch began on tuesday february 28 and is now finished anere were the denominations of these notes ranged all the way from and the number of them was about when currency is put up in packages each of which contains notes of cof only one denomination and care is at the sub treasury that this shall be done an expert and rapid counter according to the estimate ol oi cashier william sharer can count it if the bills are in a fairly condition about per hour care is taken as has been said to have buls bills of like denomination in the same package but it a bill of another denomination has found its i way into the package as sometimes happens the counter must detect detec tit it when t jis As tact fact is borne ia mind and the f urther further fact that each blunter flou uter ot of bills is rt responsible under a bond for the perfect accuracy of his work it will be seen that to chuat caunt hills bills an hour or a minute is pretty rapid work but even at this tais rate it would take one man something over seventy three hours to count the bills which go to make up the 25 5 of currency in atie sub treas ury tiie the gold is weighed and estimated in the same as the standard silver dollars a di of which will be found below up to saturday night in gold had been weighed and found not wanting and remained to do to weigh and count the silver is the most tedious task the counters have because much of it is fractional silver which cannot be accurately estimated by weight but must be laboriously counted piece by piece bourand four and a half million dollars of silver have beeh beeb counted and about remain which of itself will occupy the whole force ot of counters for at least three weeks of fractional silver there are about every piece of this must be handled and counted beca because uee owing to the loss by abrasion no reliable estimate can be made of amount by weight of two bags weighing about sixty pounds each and each containing the same value of fractional silver the ibe weight will indicate as a rule a difference of from 5 to LO 10 in value while cases have been known in which the difference has buen been as great as 30 of quarters pieces go ge to baca bag aud and a rapid counter will count ten bags a day if the whole of fractional silver therefore were in 25 cent pieces as it fortunately is not its counting would keep one man reasonably bus busy for the greater part of three years when a bag is filled it I 1 is s marked with the initials ot of the counter who is thenceforward responsible for the accuracy of his count standard silver dollars are kept in linen bags sixty pounds to the bag the value ot of these bags can generally be determined by weight the bags are passed from the vault in w which they are stored to the scales and thence if they pass the test they are removed to another vault when a bag tails fails to pass the test as about 1 per cent ot of anem do it is opened and the contents coun counted teh it is generally found in such cases that the bag contains its full complement of ef dollars which have suffered rather more than an average amount from abrasion the weight in the other pan of the scales is a test bag of silver dollars which have been in circulation with 1 added because most of the silver being weighed has lain in the vaults for vears and has been in circulation very little if at all and has not therefore buffe suffered red anything from abrasion some bags are found broken by the pressure under which they have lain and their contents spilled about the floor in such cases counting and re bagging ging are of course necessary some idea of the amount of pressure to which some of the these hags bags are subjected may be had bad from the fact they are stored in tiera a tier containing as high as bags in some cases each bag weighing sixty pounds the bags are handled by muscular longshoremen but the work is so heavy and so constant that it is found impossible for even one of these men to work at it more than one hour at a time so they work ire lays each working one hour and resting one hour alternately so far no discrepancy has been found between the count of coin and the books of the department and it is not likely that any will be found many counts have been made of the funds in the nine sub treasuries since their establishment taut but no serious discrepancy has ever been found it must not be understood that a change of officers is the only occasion on which an examination of the sub treasury fund is made on the contrary adist ant treasurers treasur ers lor for their own information and as a check upon any fraud that might exist in the department institute such examinations very fre quent ly the cost of the present examination will po probably bably not be less les than iSO 5 OG y N 1 jour commerce march ya 12 |
