Gold Is Shaken From Coins

1910

New York Detectives Unearth a Clever Swindle In the Maiden Lane Jewelry District

New York. — Secret service agents who have been at work in the Maiden Lane jewelry district, have discovered coin stripping by which gold is obtained and sold, the coins being put back into circulation apparently as good as ever. The new process consists in placing the coins in a burlap bag, which is shaken vigorously.

Thus tiny flakes of metal are knocked off the coins and cling to the bag, which is then burned, the gold melting into wee ingots.

The treasury department at Washington has been getting back of late large quantities of gold coins, which seemed more scratched and battered than ordinary.

Under the microscope it became evident that these coins had been handled with strange violence. Special agents were sent here to investigate and soon uncovered the industry of shaking the coins in burlap bags.

Taft Baffles the Secret Service Men

1910

President Taft has thrown a bombshell into the ranks of that portion of the secret service which is assigned to the duty of protecting the chief executive of the nation from assassination. It is a soft job for the secret service men and often leads to something better, several of those who formerly guarded presidents now holding government positions that pay well and make the holder a man of some consequence in his home territory.

It is feared among Chief Wilkie's men that some of them will have to be looking for other jobs if the president continues to go out for long walks through the busiest streets of Washington unprotected. The president has "had the laugh" on several of the sleuths recently when, without making any announcement of his intentions, he left the White House and started out for a walk. Generally he has been accompanied by some cabinet official, but none of Wilkie's men was along.

On his last walk the president was accompanied by his brother, Charles P. Taft, the millionaire Cincinnatian. They walked up to the capitol and strolled through its wide halls.

So far as runs the memory of Alonzo Stewart, deputy sergeant at arms of the senate, and that is a full generation, it was the first time that a president has visited the capitol on the Sabbath day.

On another occasion the president walked through Pennsylvania avenue, Washington's most prominent business street. He was wearing a sack coat and a gray sweater.

"That looks like President Taft," remarked one man as President Taft passed the five-cent theaters on the avenue. Brig. Gen. Clarence Edwards, who was with the president, giggled and the president smiled. Mr. Taft did not look much like himself in his sack coat with sweater underneath.

The walk began when the president and the general eluded the secret service men at the White House. They walked briskly down to the Potomac flats, along the Southern railroad right of way and back through South Washington, around the capitol building and library. The return trip was down Pennsylvania avenue at dusk.

A president who walks the streets of Washington is too much for Washington. Mr. Taft's predecessors rode in carriages or took their "constitutionals" across country.