Saving the Bonds.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 23, 5 June 1912, Page 7

Saving the Bonds.

When the vaults under the Equitable building, New York. were opened after the great fire, the officials of th • I'nited States Life Assurance Comp.ii , found that £600,000 worth of bond <er tificates kept in tin boxes had Ihcu ■badly soaked. Clerks (says the New York correspondent of the‘“Standard") were set to dry them with blotting paper, but after a week’s work this was found to be useless. So a new method was tried, and one of the officials tells the story as follows:— “President Munn telephoned to one of the electric supply companies of the city and ordered halt n dozen electric fans and half a dozen electric irons. When these were sent down to the vault we connected the fans and the irons to the electric light wiring of the vault. We strung other wires across the vault, and tiling 3000 bond certificates out to dry. The certificates were attached to the wires with regulation wooden clothespins. As soon as each security was made partially <li c i|»y the breeze from the whirring electric fans, one of the officers of the company, under President Munn's direction, would spread it out on an ironing board and would carefully iron it out with one of the electric irons. The ironing of 3UOd pieces of laundry isn't easy wonk, eien for a trained laundress. II took us ten days altogether, and the hand- of moot us were red and blistered before «<■ got through. Now, however, tli.it the work is all over, we are quite proud of ourselves, for not one of the entire 3000 bonds is in the slightest degree torn or damaged."