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Of similar design were the 10 and 50 cent notes, the vignette on the 10 cent stamp being Washington’s head. The color of the 5 and 25 cent notes was brown; that of the 10 and 50 cent, green; when new they were not ill-looking. To men and women who had been using shinplasters and soiled and worn postage and revenue stamps, they seemed a positive deliverance. The issue of this postage currency began August 21, 1862, and crowds of people waited patiently in long lines at the office of the Assistant-Treasurer in New York and other cities for their turn to secure some of these new and attractive notes. 4 By the act of March 3, 1863 Congress provided for the issue of fractional currency, in lieu of the postage currency, and limited the amount of both kinds to a circulation of fifty millions. The Secretary of the Treasury in issuing the new notes gave up the facsimile of the postage stamps, although the size of the notes remained substantially the same and their backs, at first brown, green, purple and red, were afterwards green for all the 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cent notes. They were receivable for all dues to the United States less than $5, except customs, and were exchangeable for United States notes; they gradually supplanted the postage currency; in popular usage both were termed “scrip.” Although desirable at first as a relief for greater evils, the notes became so worn and filthy with constant passing from hand to hand as to be objectionable on the score of cleanliness and health. Most of the people were rejoiced when finally in 1876 they began to be replaced by subsidiary silver coin and gradually to disappear from circulation, although a few regretted the paper fractional currency because of its easy transmission by mail and its service in making up the fractional amounts of pay-rolls of mining and manufacturing concerns when the money for

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