Part 25 (1/2)

THE books contain no clearer or al” ink, in its relationshi+p to facts adduced from illustrated scientific testimony, than is to be found in the final opinion written by that ear M Cullen on behalf of the majority of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, in the case of De Frees Critten v The Chee to be the expert ee Cullen remarks (N Y Rep, 171, p 223) ”The alteration of the checks by Davis was established beyond contradiction,” and again, p 227, ”The skill of the criery may be made so skillfully as to deceive not only the bank but the drawer of the check as to the genuineness of his own signature”

The main facts are included in the portion of the opinion cited:

”The plaintiffs kept a large and active account with the defendant, and this action is to recover an alleged balance of a deposit due to them from the bank The plaintiffs had in their employ a clerk named Davis It was the duty of Davis to fill up the checks which it ive in the course of business, toentries in the stubs of the check book and present the checks so prepared to Mr Critten, one of the plaintiffs, for signature, together with the bills in pay a check Critten would place it and the bill in an envelope addressed to the proper party, seal the envelope and put it in thethe period from September, 1897, to October, 1899, in twenty-four separate instances Davis abstracted one of the envelopes fro drawer, opened it, obliterated by acids the name of the payee and the amount specified in the check, then made the check payable to cash and raised its amount, in the majority of cases, by the sum of 100 He would draw the money on the check so altered from the defendant bank, pay the bill for which the check was drawn in cash and appropriate the excess On one occasion Davis did not collect the altered check from the defendant, but deposited it to his own credit in another bank When a check was presented to Critten for signature the number of dollars for which it was draould be cut in the check by a punching instrument

When Davis altered a check he would punch a new figure in front of those already appearing in the check The checks so altered by Davis were charged to the account of the plaintiff s, which was balanced every two months and the vouchers returned to them from the bank To Davis himself the plaintiffs, as a rule, intrusted the verification of the bank balance This work having in the absence of Davis been coeries were discovered and Davis was arrested and punished It is the aed checks, over and above the suinally drawn, that this action is brought to recover The defendant pleaded payence on plaintiff's part, both in the manner in which the checks were drawn and in the failure to discover the forgeries when the pass book was balanced and the vouchers surrendered On the trial the alteration of the checks by Davis was established beyond contradiction and the substantial issue litigated was that of the plaintiff's negligence The referee rendered a short decision in favor of the plaintiffs in which he states as the ground of his decision that the plaintiffs were not negligent either in signing the checks as drawn by Davis or in failing to discover the forgeries at an earlier date than that at which they werebetween a bank and a depositor being that of debtor and creditor, the bank can justify a payment on the depositor's account only upon the actual direction of the depositor

'The question arising on such paper (checks) between drawee and drawer, however, always relate to what the one has authorized the other to do

They are not questions of negligence or of liability to parties upon commercial paper, but are those of authority solely The question of negligence cannot arise unless the depositor has in drawing his cheek left blanks unfilled, or by soence has facilitated the commission of a fraud by those into whose hands the check may come' (Crawford v West Side Bank, 100 N Y 50) Therefore, when the fraudulent alteration of the checks was proved, the liability of the bank for their amount was made out and it was incuence on the plaintiff's part to relieve it froed orders Nohile the drawer of a check may be liable where he draws the instrument ill such ill incomplete state as to facilitate or invite fraudulent alterations, it is not the law that he is bound so to prepare the cheek that nobody else call successfully tamper with it (Societe Generale v Metropolitan Bank, 27 L T [N S] 849; Belknap v National Bank of North America, 100 Mass 380) In the present case the fraudulent alteration of the checks was not ure, but in the obliteration of the written name of the payee and the substitution therefor of the word 'Cash' Against this latter change of the instruuard, and without that alteration it would have no way profited the criminal to raise the amount”

A Pinkerton case of international repute, best known as the ”Becker” case, included the successful ”raising” of a check by chemical means from 12 to 22,000 The criminal author of this stupendous fraud was Charles Becker, ”king of forgers,”

who as an all round i and manipulator of monetary instruments then stood at the head of his ”profession” Arrested and taken to San Francisco he was brought to trial Two of his ”pals” turned state's evidence, and Becker was sentenced to a life tere he secured a new trial on an appeal to the Suprereed on a second trial, but on the third trial he was convicted

Becker pleaded for ns of physical break-down, the court was lenient with him Seven years was his sentence

After his incarceration in San Quetin prison, he described in one sentence how he had risen to the head of the craft of forgers ”A world of patience, a heap of tiood inks,--that is the secret ofhis sentence, his reply to the question, ”What was the underlying e?” was one word, ”Vanity!”

The detailed facts which follow are from the ”A man, under the na at San Francisco, under the guise of a merchant broker, paid a month's rent in advance, and on December 4 he went to the Bank of Nevada and opened an account with 2,500 cash, saying that his account would run from 2,000 to 30,000, and that he would want no accommodation He manipulated the account so as to invite confidence, and on December 17 he deposited a check or draft of the Bank of Woodland, Cal, upon its correspondent, the Crocker- Woolworth Bank of San Francisco The amount was paid to the credit of Dean, the check was sent through the clearing-house, and was paid by the Crocker- Woolworth Bank The next day, the check having been cleared, Dean called and drew out 20,000, taking the cash in four bags of gold, the teller not having paper money convenient He had a vehicle at the door, with his office boy inside as driver, and away he went At the end of the month, when the Crocker-Woolworth Bank made returns to the Woodland Bank, it included the draft for 22,000

Here the fraud was discovered, and here the lesson to bankers of advising drafts received a new illustration The Bank of Woodland had drawn no such draft, and the only one it had drahich was not accounted for was one for twelve dollars, issued in favor of A H Hol man, who, on December 9, called to ask how he could send twelve dollars to a distant friend, and whether it was better to send a money order or an express order When he was told he could send it by bank draft, he see new; supposed that he could not get a bank draft, and he took it, paying the fee

Here came back that innocent twelve-dollar draft, raised to 22,000, and on its way had cost soold

”The aled had nearly defied the detection of even the inal 12 draft had been the words, 'TwelveDollars' The forger, by the use of some chemical preparation, had erased the final letters 'lve' from the word 'twelve,' and had substituted the letters 'nty-two,' so that in place of the 'twelve,' is it appeared in the genuine draft, there was the word 'twenty-two' in the forged paper

”In the space between the word 'twenty-two'

and the word 'dollars' the forger inserted the word 'thousand,' so that in place of the draft reading 'twelve dollars,' as at first, it read 'twenty-two thousand dollars,' as changed

”In the original 12 draft, the figures '1' and '2' and the character '' had been punched so that the coer had filled in these perforations with paper in such away that the part filled in looked exactly like the field of the paper After having filled in the perforations, he had perforated the paper with the combination, '22,000'

”The dates, too, had been erased by the chemical process, and in their stead were dates which would make it appear that the paper bad been presented for payth of tiinal draft, if left on the forged draft, would have been liable to arouse suspicion at the bank, for they would have shown that the holder had departed fro, such a valuable paper eries which had been made in the paper, the manner in which they had been er The interjected hand-writing was so nearly like that in the original paper that it took a great while to decide whether or not it was a forgery

”In the places where letters had been erased by the use of che of the paper had been restored, so that it ell-nigh impossible to detect a variance of the hue It was the work of an artist, with pen, ink, chemicals, ca hteen days old, and the forger ht be in japan or on his way to Europe The Protective Committee of the American Bankers' association held a hurried consultation as soon as the news of the forgery reached New York, and orders were given to get this forger, regardless of expense--he was too dangerous a e It was easier said than done; but the skill of the Pinkertons was aroused and the wires werean accurate description of Dean from all who had seen hiht and day to see if they connected with any one answering the description, but patient, hard labor for nearly two months did not seem to promise much”

Not satisfied with their success in San Francisco these saan a series of operations in Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota This information by chance reached the Pinkertons who laid a trap and captured two of the gang Shortly afterward Becker on information furnished by them was also arrested, taken to California and after three separate trials as before stated, sent to San Quetin

This triuer's art, I exah it was not, the first tiht into contact with the work of Becker, was compelled to admit that this particular specile exception than any other which had coenius in the juggling of bank checks He knew the values of ink and the correct chemical to affect them His paper mill was his mouth, in which to manufacture specially prepared pulp to fill in punch holes, which when ironed over, lass He was able also to imitate water ns He says he has refor the last twenty years quite a number of cases have been tried in New York City and vicinity in which the question of inks was an all important one

The titles of a few not already referred to are given

herewith: Lawless-Fle Co, Ryold, Kerr-Southwick, N Y

Dredging Co, Thorless-Nernst, Gekouski, Perkins, Bedell forgeries, Storey, Lyddy, Clarke, Woods, Baker, Trefethen, Dupont-Dubos, Schooley, Humphrey, Dietz-Allen, Carter, and Rineard-Bowers