How Bank-Notes Are Redeemed.
"WHAT becomes of old bank-notes?" is a question asked and answered in graphic detail by a correspondent of the Evening Post:— "When the national bank-notes have tramped about the country until they have become ragged and vagabond, and have reached the lowest depths of degradation, they are bundled up and sent to the Treasury Department for redemption. Many millions of these vagrants are received at the Department each year. They have to pass in review through the National Bank Redemption Agency, where those that are utterly depraved and good for nothing are sentenced to be chewed up, and those that have got in through the force of association, but are still not so far gone that some good may not be got out of them, are sent back into the service. In the place of those that are condemned, nice new notes, crisp and clean, are sent out. The experience of these notes is varied, and in some cases very novel and interesting; but their tale is told only by their ragged and dirty appearance when they get back to the Department. The average length of time that a new note can keep up a respectable appearance is about three years. Some have been found at the end of twenty years to be as crisp as on the day of their issue; but these are exceptional cases, where they have fallen into the hands of people who made pets of them, and carefully guarded them from rough usage. The wandering note soon becomes a tramp. It rapidly goes to pieces if it starts out for the West, stopping along at the cross-road inns, or if it frequents drinking saloons and falls in with low company. Bad habits tell on a bank-note very quickly. It is hard luck when it falls in with a bloody-fingered butcher. Some have been known to become good for nothing under such circumstances in a few weeks. They are subject, too, to all sorts of misfortunes by fire and water. "Many thousands get burned up. Then their charred and blackened remains are sent to the Treasury for redemption. One lady in the comptroller's office, in this case, has charge of them, and they are sent to her for identification before they can be redeemed. Her name is Fitzgerald, and she is said to be very expert, seldom failing to identify a note, giving its proper name, date, and classification, no matter how badly burnt it is. Sometimes packages of several hundred, done up to be expressed, are sent in all stuck together and burnt clear through to a black, crispy mass. She then separates them one by one with a very thin-bladed knife, and places the charred remains of each one separately upon a glass slab, and examines it very carefully with a magnifying glass. She is familiar with all peculiarities of the issues of the various banks, and a note must be reduced almost to ashes to be beyond her recognition, though to an inexperienced eye it might not be distinguished from a piece of grocer's paper which had gone through the fire. "The force of fifty-seven, all except two or three of whom are ladies, can handle just half a million notes each day. This is very expert counting. The notes when they come to be judged have first to be 'counted in.' This requires the 'counter-in' to go over them twice, and she must make no mistake and pass no counterfeit, or the loss thus caused will be deducted from her salary. She is given from 6,000 to 10,000 notes, for which she gives a receipt; then she counts them in; then she counts them back, and if the two counts agree she is given credit for them when she settles up in the evening, turning in the money, bound, and labeled with her name and the amount on each package. If the packages, or any of them, are found short, she has to make good the deficiency. Next, the notes have to be assorted, those in good condition from those in bad condition; then they have to be grouped as to denomination; then distributed into banks of issue, and then into denomination, under the heads of banks. Then they are 'counted out.' The 'counter-in' has to handle them twice and the 'counter-out' thrice, but the former has the most responsibility, and must be more expert. The 'counter-in' handles from 6,000 to 10,000 notes twice, or counts 12,000 to 20,000 per day, while the 'counter-out' handles from 5,000 to 7,000 three times, or counts from 15,000 to 21,000 per day. This is provided they make no mistake, which makes a recount necessary, and doubles the work."