A Million Dollars Destroyed

"Every working day in the year Uncle Sam destroysa milHon dollars: deliberately tears up aart grinds to pulp one milliou dollars' worth of paper money - genuine bank notes and gfeenbaclts," writes Clifford Howard in the September Ladies' Homo Journal. "A mlllion dollars in one, two, five, ten, twenty, iifty, one-luindred, and onothousand-dollar notes are daily punched f uil of holes, cut üito halve.s and thrown into a machine that rapidly reduces thein to a mass of mushy substance. '■Whenever a piece of paper money becomes sóiled or torn ib inay be piesented to the United States Treasury and redeemed. Sooner or later eyery note that eircuiates among the people becomes unfit [or furthcr service, for U is bmtnd to beopme dirty or mutila tod by constant handling, and the United States Uovenmient stands ready to givë the halder of sucli a note a new note in exchangè for it ; or, in other worde, the government wfll redeem it. "The majority of the clerks cmployed in thks important department of the goverannent are women, many of wliom are the most expert money and counterfeit detectors in the world. In fact, only experts can properly perform the work that is required ; for not only must the soiled and mutilated money be accurately and rapidly counted, but all counterfeit notes must be detected and thrown out. When we consider that some counterfeiters can eo cleverly Imítate genuino money that tlieir spurious notes will circuíate througli the country without detection, and are not discorered until they are finally turned into the treasury, some idea of the proficieucy of these experts can be gained, especially when few bear in mind that these notes are often so worn that the imprint on them can scarcely be deciphered. It not infrequently happens that these bad notes are detected simply by the feel of them, which, in some cases, is really the only way of discovering the fraud ; for while a counterfeit er may occasionally succeed in so perfectly imitating the design of a note as to misfead even an expert, it is next to impossible íor him lo counterfeit the paper used by the government."