ency." It is a matter of the most common
knowledge throughout the country, that the various forms of national
currency and securities are by some process, popularly esteemed more or
less miraculous, printed at the Treasury, and that greenbacks are by
some method, presumably more within the laws of nature, redeemed there.
The ordinary money-holder, who has in his pocket his tens or hundreds of
legal tenders, is passably familiar with the history, past and to come,
of each note. But to his national bank notes the average financier is
more of a stranger. Each note, if he can read as well as reckon cash,
tells him whence it cometh, but ten to one he has only the vaguest
notion of whither it goeth. Hence it is that of the thousands of
ejaculatory comments delivered, during the centennial summer and autumn,
through the wire gate opposite to the second assortment teller's desk,
at the agency, so many were of a nature tending to make that industrious
clerk smile with amusement or stare in amazement.

The throngs of centennial visitors who daily passed through the halls of
the Treasury saw various things at the agency to attract their notice.
They saw their entrance barred by the gate above alluded to, put there
for the double purpose of securing ventilation and excluding "the great
unwashed"; they saw a small-sized room converted into a perfect
labyrinth by means of wirework partitions; they saw in each of the
apartments so set off hundreds of thousands, and even millions of
dollars, in the various processes of handling in bulk, piled upon
counters and tables, constructed evidently with a view to use rather
than ornament; and they saw through the entrance to an adjoining room
national bank notes of all denominations, passing with wonderful
rapidity under the deft fingers of counters of both sexes. But what
chiefly imposed upon the imagination of the country visitor were two
massive safes, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. In the interests
of truth, let a revelation be made to a public too prone to believe
their eyes. Those safes, for at least the upper third of their ponderous
height, are of inch pine boards. The crowded condition of the Treasury
building renders space very valuable. A place of storage was needed for
the various forms of stationery in use at the agency. The floor was
already covered with desks, tables, and counters, the intricate passages
between which would have defied the attempts of the Minotaur to esca