The most frequent cla.s.s of forgeries consists of erasures, which means the removing of the genuine writing by mechanical or chemical means.
Erasing with knife, rubber, etc., has practically been abandoned by expert forgers, on account of the almost certain detection which must necessarily follow the traces left in evidence. Erasing fluids, ink eradicators, etc., are more generally used for this purpose. These have entered the market for legitimate purposes and can be commercially obtained. Too much confidence should, therefore, not be placed in the careful writing of checks, etc., alone, as with the aid of chemicals the original writing can be entirely removed and forged words and figures subst.i.tuted.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Simple additions to genuine handwriting: ORIGINAL--ALTERATION.]
Second in importance and frequency, and perhaps the easiest kind of forgery, consists of simple additions to genuine handwriting. In checks or drafts the changing of "eight" to "eighty" by the addition of a single letter is a striking ill.u.s.tration. The change of "six" to "sixty," "twenty" to "seventy," etc., can also be accomplished by adding a few strokes and without erasure, as per specimens given.
The forging of signatures and writing in general is accomplished by means of tracing as above referred to, free-hand copying, with the aid of considerable practice, and copying by mechanical or chemical processes. It is not intended here to give directions, but simply to refer to facts, with a view to preventing losses and detecting forgeries. For this reason one method of reproduction may briefly be described. The carelessness with which blotters are used in public places, bank counters, post, express and hotel offices is to be strongly condemned. The entire signature of an indorser is often clearly copied on the underside of the blotting paper, which only needs to fall into the hands of a designing party to be projected on any paper or doc.u.ment and in any desired position.
The means of discovering and demonstrating forged handwriting are as varied as the methods employed in its execution, and it may be some comfort to know that the cunning of the forger is more than matched by the skill and ability of the expert.
The ordinary method of identifying handwriting consists in the "comparison of hands." This, however, is only admitted in courts of justice under certain limitations. The genuineness of a disputed writing can be proved by a witness who has seen its execution, or by comparison with correspondence received in the regular course of business, or by comparisons with disputed specimens of the alleged handwriting, which must also be in evidence. Disputed signatures may be compared with other signatures acknowledged to be genuine, or with letters or doc.u.ments, the genuineness of which is unquestioned. In arriving at conclusions many things are to be considered, the form of the letters, their manner of combination, evidences of habit, etc.
Another method of detecting forgery is afforded by the internal evidences of fraud of the writing itself, with or without the aid of comparison with genuine writing. These evidences may consist of alterations, erasures, additions, crowding, etc., as above referred to; tracing a genuine writing by means of ink or pencil, afterwards retraced, etc.
The copy of a genuine signature may be free-hand or composite, by which is meant that the writing is produced discontinuously or in parts. Comparison of the separate letters of the doubtful specimen of writing with the separate letters of the genuine writing of the supposed imitator or imitated always exhibits less uniformity if imitation has been attempted, the copyist being frequently led into an approach to his ordinary handwriting or into an oversight of some special characteristics of the writing he is simulating. Even minor points do not escape the expert"s critical attention. The dotting of the i"s, or crossing of the t"s, curls, loops, flourishes, intervals between words and letters, connections, characteristics of up and down strokes are all carefully noticed.
A gla.s.s of low magnifying power will, as a rule, exhibit erasures, and even bring to view the erased letters. In tracing, the forger frequently fails to cover over the first outlines, which can be plainly distinguished. The places where the pen has been put upon and removed from the paper may sometimes be noticed, which is in itself strong evidence of fraud.
With the aid of a microscope the character of the alterations, certain characteristics due to age, emotion, etc., the kind of pen used and how it was held, the nature of ink, order of writing, with regard to time, whether produced by the right or left hand, standing or sitting, can often be determined. Indentations made by heavy strokes or a sharp pen, as well as those employed as guides for the signature subsequently written, will also be brought into prominence. Forged signatures placed under the microscope have generally a patched appearance, which results from the retracing of lines in certain portions not occurring in genuine writing.
In case of disputed handwriting photography has also been employed to great advantage. Of course the writing in question should, whenever practicable, be compared with the original, photographic copies being looked upon with disfavor and considered by most courts as secondary evidence. Still, photographic enlargements of genuine and disputed signatures are very useful in ill.u.s.trating expert testimony. Certain characteristics, differences in ink, attempts to remove writing, etc., may be brought to view, which would be entirely overlooked by direct examination. The wonderful power of the camera has recently been ill.u.s.trated in a very striking manner. A large ocean steamer was photographed, and on receipt of the proof the owners were surprised to see a hand bill posted on the side of the hull. Examination of the ship disclosed no hand bill there, but another photograph exhibited the same result. A searching inspection revealed the presence of the mysterious paper buried beneath four coats of paint, but defying the superficial scrutiny of the human eye.
As a last resort chemical tests may be applied, by which the ident.i.ty or difference of the inks used may be established, etc. As a means of demonstrating that chemical erasures have been made a certain manipulation and treatment of the paper submitted will almost invariably bring back the original and obliterated writing.
A few words regarding papers and doc.u.ments, intended for preservation, will not be amiss. Improved processes of manufacture have certainly had no beneficial influence on the durability of the products, and while inks and papers have become greatly reduced in price and apparently improved in quality, it is very doubtful if much of our book learning and many of our written instruments will go down to future generations. Even fifty years will suffice to decompose many an attractive volume at present on the shelves of our libraries, or fade the writing of finely engraved and important doc.u.ments. The quality of the ink and paper selected is therefore of greatest importance.
Typewritten copies particularly are subject to the ravages of time, and ought to be avoided when preservation for years to come is the princ.i.p.al consideration, as for instance in the case of wills, etc., which ought to be made in one"s own handwriting whenever practicable.
Briefly, I may state that all the safeguards employed on commercial papers or legal doc.u.ments, outside of the actual protection afforded, have the beneficial effect or tendency to make forgeries, erasures or alterations more difficult, at the same time warning prospective forgers to keep a respectful distance.
The inks used, the position of the writing, the paper on which it is written, the employment of certain chemical, mechanical and clerical preventatives are all to be thoughtfully considered by those who desire to protect themselves against losses resulting from fraudulent handwriting.
With regard to expert testimony it may be said in conclusion that it is most effective if governed solely by the evidence submitted, and not by information otherwise obtained. The microscopic and photographic examination of papers and doc.u.ments, as well as their mechanical and chemical treatment, require in all cases the trained eye, the skilled hand and the extensive experience of the expert, in order to fully utilize the available material and to arrive at conclusions which are in entire accord with the facts under consideration, thereby aiding in the just and equitable settlement of weighty questions of profit or loss, affluence or poverty, liberty or imprisonment, life or death.
Another expert in handwriting says that regarding the methods made use of to determine authorship, specialists are naturally reticent. Some of them have admitted, however, the nature of the leading principles"
which guide them. The philosophy of the matter rests mainly on the fact that it is very rare for any two persons to write hands similar enough to deceive a careful observer, unless one is imitating the other. "Fists," like faces, have all some special idiosyncrasy, and the imitator has not merely to copy that of some one else but to disguise his own.
By careful and frequent practice he may succeed well enough to deceive the ordinary man, but is rarely successful in baffling the expert.
Even the most skilful culprit cannot wholly hide his individuality, as he is sure to relapse into his ordinary method occasionally. Then again, great care has to be used, and this can be detected by the traces of hesitancy, the subst.i.tution of curves for angles and _vice versa_, which come out very plainly when the writing is examined under the microscope, as it usually is by the expert.
A plan of detection which has been adopted with great success is to cut out each letter in a doubtful piece of writing, and paste all the A"s, B"s, etc., on separate sheets of paper. The process is also gone through with a genuine bit of caligraphy of the imitator or the imitated, as the case may be. Comparison almost invariably shows that the letters are less uniform if imitation has been attempted, the writer being occasionally betrayed into some approach to his ordinary caligraphy, or into momentary forgetfulness of some special point in the handwriting he is simulating.
No point is too small to escape an expert"s attention. The dotting of the "i"s," the crossing of "t"s," the curls and flourishes, the intervals between the words, the thinness of the up-stroke and the thickness of the down-stroke, are all noted and carefully compared.
Where only a signature has been forged, and that by means of tracings from the original the resemblance is often so exact as to deceive even the supposed author, but in these cases the microscope is generally effective in determining not merely the forgery but the method by which it was accomplished. It is some comfort to know that the cunning of the forger is overmatched by the scientific skill of the trained expert.
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW FORGERS ALTER BANK NOTES
Bankers Easily Deceived--How Ten One Hundred-Dollar Bills Are Made out of Nine--How to Detect Altered Bank Notes--Making a Ten-Dollar Bill out of a Five--A Ten Raised to Fifty--How Two-Dollar Bills are Raised to a Higher Denomination--Bogus Money in Commercial Colleges--Action of the United States Treasury Department--Engraving a Greenback--How They Are Printed--Making a Vignette--Beyond the Reach of Rascals--How Bank Notes Are Printed, Signed and Issued by the Government--Safeguards to Foil Forgers, Counterfeiters and Alterers of Bank Notes--Devices to Raise Genuine Bank Notes--Split Notes--Altering Silver Certificates.
A dangerous game and one too often successfully perpetrated, is the raising of bank bills from a lower to a higher denomination.
Counterfeiters and forgers have often been detected making ten bills of nine by the following operation:
A counterfeit one hundred-dollar bank note is cut into ten pieces; one of these pieces is pasted into a genuine bill, cutting out a piece of the genuine of the same size. In pasting nine genuine bills in this manner nine pieces are obtained, which, with one piece of counterfeit, will make a tenth bill, which is the profit. This operation is not a very successful one, as the difference between the counterfeit and the genuine will be very evident to any one who examines closely.
Every business man should know how to detect altered bank bills, and a close scrutiny of all money offered, bearing in mind the suggestions here made, will prove a safeguard. Bank notes are sometimes altered by raising from lower to higher denominations, or replacing name of broken bank by name of good one. This is done either by erasing words and printing others in their place, or by pasting on the original bill a piece of counterfeit work or a piece taken from some genuine bill.
If the former, the new counterfeit piece will always differ from the surrounding genuine work. If the latter, the fraud will be revealed by holding the bill up to the light, when the portion pasted will look darker than the surrounding portions.
Another method employed is to cut ten-dollar bills in halves, also five-dollar bills, then join them, and raise the five part to a ten by the blue paper dodge. This bill can be successfully worked off in a roll of other bills, owing to the workmanship, and sometimes a gang will visit a certain locality and flood it with doctored bills.
Fifty-dollar bills have been often raised from a ten. This fraud is generally neatly executed, and is well calculated to deceive the unsuspecting, and a banker, in hurriedly counting money, is liable to be taken in on one of these.
A recent scheme to defraud with raised bills is to raise a two-dollar bill to a five. In order to accomplish this feat rascals cut out the figure five in the left-hand corner of a "V" and paste it over the figure "2" in the upper right-hand corner of the two-dollar bill. The pasting is done so neatly that not one person in a hundred, or even a thousand, unless an expert, would notice the difference. The very small $2 marks in the scroll-work surrounding the large figure are blotted out with a pencil and are not visible. The figure "2" in the lower right-hand corner is erased with acids, and the bill is in all respects a first-cla.s.s imitation of the genuine article. Treasury officials say that this is something new in the way of bill-raising, and is very dangerous.
Many people who are not used to handling money have been swindled by what is known as "Imitation Money." The United States Treasury Department is making strenuous efforts to break up the practice of issuing imitations of the national currency, to which many commercial colleges and business firms are addicted. This bogus currency has been extensively used by sharpers all over the country to swindle ignorant people and its manufacture is in violation of law.
So vague is the general idea as to how a bank note is made that we give an explanation of the various processes it goes through before it is issued as a part of the "money of the realm," saying, by way of introduction, that this country leads the world in bank-note engraving. Unfortunately, the first consideration in making a bank-note is to prevent bad men from making a counterfeit of it, and therefore all the notes of a certain denomination or value must be exact duplicates of each other. If they were engraved by hand this would not be the case; and, another thing, hand engraving is more easily counterfeited than the work done by the processes we herewith describe.
Every note is printed from a steel plate, in the preparation of which many persons take part. If you will look at a $5 "greenback" you will see a picture in the center; a small portrait, called a vignette, on the left, and in each of the upper corners a network of fine lines with a dark ground, one of them containing the letter "V" and the other the figure "5." These four parts are made on separate plates.
To make a vignette it is necessary, first, to make a large drawing on paper with great care, and a daguerreotype is then taken of the drawing the exact size of the engraving desired.
The daguerreotype is then given to the engraver, who uses a steel point to mark on it all the outlines of the picture. The plate is inked and a print taken from it. While the ink is still damp the print is laid face down on a steel plate, which has been softened by heating it red hot and letting it cool slowly. It is then put in a press and an exact copy of the outline is thus made on the steel plate. This the engraver finishes with his graver, a tool with a three-cornered point, which cuts a clean line without leaving a rough edge.
Now this is used for making other plates--it is never used to print from. It must be made hard and this is done by heating it and cooling it quickly. A little roller of softened steel is then rolled over it by a powerful machine until its surface has been forced into all the lines cut into the plate. The outlines of the vignette are thus transferred to the roller in raised lines, and after the roller is hardened it is used to roll over plates of softened steel, and thus make in them sunken lines exactly like those in the plate originally engraved. The center picture is engraved and transferred to a roller like the vignette, but the network in the upper corners, and also on the back of the note, is made by the lathe. This machine costs $5,000, a price that puts it beyond the reach of counterfeiters, and its work is so perfect that it can not be imitated by hand.
The black parts of the note are printed first, and when the ink is dry the green-black is printed, to be followed by the red stamps and numbers. It is then signed and issued. For greater security one part of the note is engraved and printed at one place and another part at another place, when it is sent to Washington to be finished and signed.
But even after all this care and all these safeguards many skillfully executed counterfeits and raised and altered bank notes have been made and issued, some of them so good as to deceive the most expert judges of money.
Many devices have been resorted to by counterfeiters to raise genuine bank-notes, as well as to manufacture bogus ones, but one of the most novel has recently come to light. The scheme consists of splitting a $5 and a $1 note, and then pasting the back of the $1 note to the front of the $5 note and the front of the $1 note to the back of the $5 note. The mechanical part of the work was excellently done, but the fraud could be detected the moment the note was turned over.
An effort had been made to change the "one" to "five" on the "one"
side of the new combined note, but it was done so clumsily that the fraud would have been seen at a glance, and the only hope of pa.s.sing the notes as fives would have been to pa.s.s them over with the $5 side up and trust to the man receiving it not to turn it over before putting it away. The doctored notes came to the notice of the writer through one of the Chicago banks, with the request that they be allowed whatever they were worth. The government always redeems notes at the face value, and as the faces in this case were of a $1 and a $5 note, $6 was allowed. It is not known whether the bank was caught on the split notes or not.
Another scheme for altering bank-notes is practiced with more or less success. It is to take a one dollar silver certificate and by means of powerful acids and fine penwork the large figure "one" on the reverse side is split into two "tens," and the intermediate portion transformed into a scroll. On the other side the "one" over the representation of the silver dollar is obliterated and "ten" subst.i.tuted, but the "s" is left off the dollar. The single "1" figures in the corners are neatly eaten off and the figure "10" subst.i.tuted. The small "one" is changed to an "X" and a new series number is printed in red upon the face. The bill would pa.s.s anywhere. None but an expert would detect the fraud.
APPENDIX
INTERESTING WRITINGS OF VARIOUS KINDS FOR STUDY AND COMPARISON