Near the punches in the cancelling room is a ferocious-looking knife, set in an axle, which is consecrated to the purpose of cutting the cancelled bundles in two, through the middle of each note. These are made into packages of one hundred thousand dollars of fractional currency, and larger sums of legal tender notes; and are sent back to this office to be cut asunder by this knife. The duplicate paper and strap which our fair counter bound about this bundle, is so printed as to show, upon each half, the denomination, issue and amount of the notes enclosed. The counter’s initials and the date of counting are also recorded at each end, as well as a number or letter to identify the bundle. These sundered notes are now sent, one-half to counters in the Secretary’s office, the other half to counters in the Registrar’s office, where every little wretched rag is re-counted. This is done as a check on the Treasurer’s counters, and to secure absolute accuracy. If these second counters discover a “short” or a “counterfeit” passed over by the first fair fingers, the full amount is taken out of the wages of the counter whose initials the tell-tale package bears. [Illustration: BURNT TO ASHES.—THE END OF UNCLE SAM’S GREENBACKS. The above is a graphic sketch of the destruction of the worn and defaced currency constantly being redeemed by the Government, which is here burned every day at 12 o’clock. On one occasion considerably more than one hundred million dollars’ worth of bonds and greenbacks were destroyed in this furnace, and the burning of from fifty to seventy-five millions at a time is a matter of ordinary occurrence. ] The Treasury mills grind slowly; but in the slow fullness of time the separate “counts” of three offices—the Treasurer’s, the Register’s, the Secretary’s—are finally reconciled. The integrity of the Government, throughout the whole existence of its minutest fraction, has been maintained and demonstrated. In the process there is not much left of our poor little dollar, and nothing left for us but to go to its funeral. Like most of us, it has had rather a hard time in this world of ours. Where has it not lived—from a palace to “a pig’s stomach;” and what has it not endured—from the scarlet rash to the small-pox—and to think that nothing remains for it now but to be burned! Only through purgatorial flame can it be fully and finally “redeemed.”