Profit On Coinage

New ïorksun. A considerable source of prolit to the United States (overnmcnt is tho amount of paper money and coin whicli is novcr presen ted for lodomptioft. Much of this is dc9troyod by iiro. Some of it is buriecl or Jiid in places known to no person alive. A large quantity of the coin is melted to makc sterling silverwaro. Considerable auiounts of both paper money and coin are exportad, never to return. Not longago a United States bond, issued about 1819, was presentad at the Sub-Treásury in this city. The interest on it had ceased over City years. It had come back from Kurope through Baring Brothers. The ontstaudino- principal of tho public debt of tho United States last year was nearly two billion of dollars, cMefly represented by bonds anti Treasury notes. 1 1 would be, of eoursc, impossiljlc to gay how mueh of this will never be presented for redemplion, but some ideamay be formed from the faclthat $57,065 of it was issucd so long ago that the date is not recorded. It appéars in the report as "old debt" that may safely be put down os proüt. There is an item of $82,525 of Treasury notes issued prior to 1840. Some of them wero issucd nearly lifty years ago, and will uot, in all probab'ility, ever be presented for rcdemption. One thousand onc lnindred and four dollars of the Mexican indemnity of 1840 lias never been claimed. Tiic last of the fractional currency was issued under the act of Juno C, 1804, yet, although nearly twenty years havo elapsed, 7,077,247 has not been presented for redemption. Some of this is held as a curiosity. Some of it is still used by banks and merchante for transmitting small sums by mail. Several New York banks have considerable sums of new fractional currenoy which tlie.y distributc for the aceommodation of tlieir customers. As to tho coin, the Government derives a considerable proíit írom it. The silver in 1,000 silver dollars costs, n an average, about $803 75. The coinago of a silver dollar costs about 1J cents. The total cost of 1,000 silver dollars to lie Government is, therefore, $816 36. Since the organizaron of tho Mint, in 1793, 127,190,018 silvor dollars have been coined, on which tho Government has reccived a prolit of over $23,000,000. In the sameperiod 122,758,510 was coined into half dollars. At the same ra'c of cost for coinage the govermnent profited $19,895,769 on these. The total silver coinage of the government sinco 1793 is $3-17, 700,792. Estimating the prolit on the halves, quarters and subsidiary coins at tho same rato as on dollars, the total prolit recoived by the govermnent on its silver coinage has been about 04,000,000. In the coinage of the iivo centniekels the government reserved to itself the liberal prolit of nearly 50 per cent. This gave to the government last year tho handsomc revenue of over $100,000 in nickels alore. Tho wide margin be twecn the intrinsic valuo of the livc-cont nicklo and its face value led to extremo counterfeiting. Several years ago an assay was made of some of the counterfeit nickels, and it was discovored that the counterfeiters had put into their coins more valuablo metal than the government uses in making the genuine coins.