The count had to be stopped, and the bags, which contained millions of dollars, piled up in the corridors, while a steel frame was put in, that would be strong enough to keep all this money in safety.

The fact of there being millions of dollars in the Treasury does not mean that such a tremendous sum of money is lying idle, while thousands are in want of it.

Practically, every dollar of the money in the Treasury is in circulation in the shape of the paper bills which we use as money.

These bills have no value in themselves; they are just so much printed paper, and if we tried to sell them for the value of the paper they are made of, we would get about ten cents for a pound of them.

The reason why they are of value to us, and we can exchange them for the amount printed on their faces, is that for every one of these notes that is issued, the Government deposits as many dollars in the Treasury as it represents.

If you look on the face of the last issue of dollar bills, you will see printed across it: 

“This certifies that there has been deposited in the Treasury of the United States one silver dollar, payable to the bearer on demand.

“G.  Fount Tillman, Register of the Treasury.  “D.N.  Morgan, Treasurer of the United States.”

The bills that we use are really silver certificates, which give us the right to go to the nearest Treasury and demand as many silver dollars as we have notes for, whenever we are minded to do so.

The millions of dollars that are lying in the Sub-Treasury in New York represent, therefore, millions of dollars in bills, or silver certificates, that are in use and for which the Treasurer must be able to give solid money at any time he is asked.

A country becomes bankrupt when it cannot redeem its paper money in coin.

That is the condition of Spain and Cuba at this moment.

In Cuba General Weyler has ordered a large amount of paper money issued.  The banks have been obliged to obey him; but as every one knows that no coin has been deposited in the Treasury to make the paper notes good, people do not care to take them.

General Weyler says that Spain will make the notes good at the end of the war; but as no one believes him, the paper money has steadily fallen in value.

Falling in value, you must understand, means that the merchant will not give a dollar’s worth of goods in exchange for a dollar note.

In Cuba the merchants began by giving but ninety cents’ worth of goods for the dollar; but as the war has continued and the poverty of Spain has become plainer, they have given less and less, until now they will only give thirty cents’ worth of goods in exchange for the paper dollar.

During the late war in the South, the Confederates issued paper money, which they promised to redeem as soon as the war was over, but for which they had no coin to deposit.