Mysteries of Police and Crime by Arthur Griffiths

Author:Arthur Griffiths [Griffiths, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

IMITATION BANKNOTE ETCHED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK IN 1818, SATIRISING THE INFLICTION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR FORGERY.

Frauds on the currency were not limited to counterfeiting the coinage. Banknotes were systematically forged, although the penalty was death. This crime had been greatly stimulated by the suspension of specie payments and the issue of paper money. The Bank of England had been thus saved at a great financial crisis, when its reserve in cash and bullion had shrunk to little more than a million, and it had issued notes for values of less than five pounds. Note forgery at once increased to a serious extent, and as the Bank was implacable, insisting on rigorous prosecution, great numbers of capital convictions followed. The most minute and elaborate provisions existed, prescribing the heaviest penalties not only for the actual manufacture and uttering, but for the mere possession of banknote paper, plates, or engraving tools. The infliction of the extreme sentence did not check the crime. Detection, too, was most difficult. The public could not distinguish between true and false notes. Bank officials were sometimes deceived, and clerks at the counter were known to accept bad paper, yet refuse payment of what was genuine. Some account will be given on a later page of Charles Price, commonly called “Old Patch,” from his favourite disguise of a patch on one eye. He was a most extraordinarily successful forger of banknotes, who did all but the negotiation of them himself: he made his paper with the correct watermark, engraved his plates, and prepared his own ink. He had several homes, many aliases, used many disguises, and employed an army of agents and assistants, some of them his wives (for he was a noted bigamist), to put off the notes.

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