The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1866-10-06 00:00:00

UTTERING FORGED NOTES IN
FRANCE.

The cane of two Poles, charged with uttering in
France forged nptes of the Bank of Russia, resulted
on Saturday in an acquittal on very extraordinary
grounds. Advocate-General Heins?, in stating the
ceim to thelury, said that for upwards of ten years
there had existed Offices in Brussels and Londdn where
Busaian notes were forged; and the numerous Polish
agents, under whose directions the forgeries were
committed, had Untied hundreds of millions of the
false notes in various parts of Europe. He need not
enlarge upon the danger of such fraudulent ntteringa
to the trade of civilised nations, and it must be clear
to every honest conscience that political pardons were
no excuse for forgery. English juries had frequently
convicted in similar Caere, no had French juries,
and he trusted the jury he was then addressing
would be equally firm. The prisoner, Dr. Lipkau,
was one of tie st active and dangerous agents in
circulating these forged notes. Through the other
prisoner, Loudinski, he wan in constant communica-
tion with the forgers in London. Papers had been
found at his lodgings chewing the precise mode in
which the forgeries were committed. Two of the forged
notes were found in his rooms, and it was proved that
he had many others elsewhere. A witness named Ma-
liachenski deposed that Lipkau had passed a forged
note to him, which the money-changers, having been
warned, refused to receive. The participation of
Loudinski Lipksu's agent in London, was too evident
to be denied. Both public and private interests re-
quired that such crimes should be punished. He did
not oppose the admission of extenuating circurn.
stances.

M. Desmarest, who defended Dr. Lipkau, insisted
that a distinction was to he made between those 'lie
criminals who had hitherto been justly convicted of
having forged Russian notes from sordid motives, and
Polish emigrants who had ventured upon this vast
enterprise with the revolutionary, but entirely dis-
interested ohiect of damaging Russian finances by
discrediting Russion bank notes. His client, Dr.
Lipkan, who was one of the most enthipiastic of
Polish patriots, belonged to this category. The note
which he caused to he forged in London he sent to
Russia for distribution, and he never caused the least
. . .

prejudice to French credit. M. Deemarest represented
hie client as an honest man, universally respected by
all who knew him, and as laboriously as successfully
practising the medical profession for a livelihood, hie
patients including very many of the poorest, as well as
the richest, of the Polish exiles. An eloquent picture
of the interior of Dr. Itipkau's house, his children,
and his young wife, with hair prematurely grey from
sorrow, concluded M. Desmarest's speech.
M. Hendle, counsel for Itoudinski, took the same
line of argument. It had alwayn been held that great
political and social strtigglesmight, in particular cases,
be urged as reasons why the ordinary rules of law anti
morality should not be applied. M. Thiers, in his
fourteenth volume of the "History of the Consulate
and the Empire," recorded the fact that Napoleon
when he invaded Russia, circulated in the country
false paper roubles fabricated in Paris. The jury
would not, he was persuaded, give the Russian govern.
ment the satisfaction of seeing patriotic Poles punished
in Paris for doing their utmost, no matter by what
means, to counteract the spoliation and massacre, of
Warsaw. M. Hendle read a certificate from the
" Polish National Government," giving his client a
very high character.
The jury adopted the arguments of the prisoners'
counsel, and pronounced a verdict of acquittal.
The propriety of the verdict, notwithstanding the
precedent furnished by Napoleon 1., is no doubt very
open to discussion, notwithstanding sympathy for the
unfortunate and much.provoked Polish emigrants.