The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-11 00:00:00

Bill Forgeries in Leeds.

The disclosures which have recently been Plade with re-
gard to the forgeries of mercantile paper committed by the
runaway Marsden, following close upon those of ,A.ekroyd,
who was convicted of forgery at last Leeds Assizes, gage rise
to some very unpleasant doubts. It seems hardly possible
—in fact it is utterly impossible—to believe that Marsden's
fabrication of bills was not known to several persons long
before the stoppage of the Leeds Banking Company. There
must have been men in the town who knew well that Mars-
den was dealing in forged paper, and who yet held their
peace and took no steps to follow up a clue which might
have sopped his course some months before he found it
necessary to fly the country. It is absurd to suppose he can
have forged and uttered a thousand bills without the fact of
his having done so becoming known to persons who, from
motives of their own, winked at his proceedings, and who
having escaped loss themselves took no pains to bring the
offender to justice.
We have been informed by those whose information upcn
such a matter is likely to be good, that if attorneys' and
bill discounters' offices, bank parlours and merchants'
counting houses could disclose their secrets, we should hear
strange tales of forged bills which never come out in courts
of justice, and should learn that no felony is so frequently
compounded as that of the forgery of a bill of exchange.
The holder of such a bill, especially if it is of large amount,
naturally wants his money, and if that is forthcoming, it is
not, as he conceives it, his business to prosecute the in-
dorser for forgery. The banker to whom such a bill is
presented for discount, and who knows that it is a forgery,
merely shakes his head at it, and refuses, without assigning
any reason, to take it over the counter. The professional
bill discsunter will possibly take it without demur, if he
thinks the forger's credit is not entirely exhausted, for he
knows that he will strain every nerve to meet that bill. The
attorney in whose hands such a bill is placed by his client,
with an intimation that it is a forgery, or at all events that
there are great doubts about its genuineness, uses the threat
of criminal proceedings merely as a means of getting the
bill taken up. Now let us be distinctly understood. We do
not mean to say that all attorneys, all bill discounters, all
merchants, and all bankers are in the habit of thus dealing
with forged paper coming under their notice. No doubt
there aro many men who, happily for themselves and the
mercantile world, take a different view of their rights and
duties, and would no more think of allowing a forger to
escape because they lost nothing by him than they would
think of picking pockets or forging acceptances themselves.
Unless, however, merchants and bankers are greatly belied
there are not a few among them who regard forgery as a
venial offence when it does not injure their own pockets,
and who never think of prosecuting, on public grounds,
persons as to whose guilt they have no doubt.
It is possible, however, that the indisposition to take any
steps with regard to the prosecution of offenders against the
forgery laws may sometimes arise from more respectable
causes than those which we have indicated. A banker or
merchant may have strong suspicions as to the genuineness
of paper presented to him, and yet those suspicions do not
seem to him to bo strong enough to warrant him in taking
any other step than merely refusing it. Of course in such
cases it would be absurd to say that he ought to take cri-
minal proceedings, or indeed that he would be justified in
so doing. But he might at all events take steps to ascertain
whether his suspicions were or were not well grounded, and
act accordingly. There are channels well known to all per-
sons engaged in trade through which inquiries may be
made with the utmost secresy, and with almost certainty as
to their being followed by correct information.
We believe upon very good authority, and if we are
wrong we shall be glad to be corrected and to find ourselves
mistaken, that the forgery of negotiable instruments has
very much increased within the last few years, and that the
actual prosecutions for this offence represent a very small
number of the forgeries actually committed. If this is the
case it is disgraceful to the public morality, and must sap
the very foundations of credit. Every man engaged in trade
is deeply interested in seeing to it that no mercantile forgery
is allowed to pass unpunished, and that the forger should
have no greater chance of escape than the thief or the mur-
derer. When this crime was punished with death there was
some excuse for winking at its commission, as the penalty
seemed out of proportion to the offence; but prosecutions for
it are now rarely foregone from humanitarian motives. The
reason that the forger is not prosecuted now a days usually
is that the person who ought to prosecute finds it to his
individual pecuniary advantage to hold his tongue.
We believe that all persons who have to do with nego-
tiable instruments, either as bankers or merchants, owe it
to themselves and their fellows to guard their purity with
the utmost vigilance. It is only fair to the courts of law to
say that the forgery of such instruments is always regarded
as a higher crime and is visited with a heavier punishment
I than other classes of forgery, as being a corruption of the
functions of credit at their very source. • It is in vain, how-
ever, for judges to disclaim against the heinousness of the
crime if it is not regarded with at least equal abhorrence by
those whose interests it directly affects, and if from merely
selfish motives they decline to put the criminal law in
motion against it. And mercantile men ought to visit
with the severest reprobation not merely the actual forgers
and utterers, but those who knowingly stand by and see
the offence committed, and yet make no effort whatever to
punish it, either from love of their own ease or tenderness
for their own pockets. Of course a man who actually
compounds a felony by receiving the value of a forged-bill
as a consideration for foregoing a prosecutions brings
himself within the lash of the criminal law. Such
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law ought to be severely dealt with by public opinion, and
ought to operate as an immediate loss of standing and re-
putation in the mercantile world. Seeing a thief and being
partaker with him does not seem to be a more grievous
offence, and is certainly less injurious to the community
than that of refraining from any motive whatever from the
prosecution of a forger of bills.—Leeds Aferoury.