The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-18 00:00:00

THE BANK FORGERIES,

(From the Times.
The Wagner gang, just convicted at the Old
Bailey, were social enemies, almost respectable from
the magnitude of their operations and the artistic
resources developed in their attacks upon their na-
tural victims, the banking community of this me-
tropcdis. The history of their lives reads more like
a chapter from " The Pursuit of Knowledge under
Difficulties," or an account of the stages of invention
which produced our present steam engine, than like
the procss of robbing a banker of £265. The most
patient lab our, the most careful tracking of' occult
truths, the kvlost open-eyed observation of triflfLig
indications, the qualities which have given statues
and immortal mimes to Harvey and Watt and
Stephenson, seem' to have been possessed and
exercised by Wm. Vagn er, Robt. Humphreys, Wm.
Wynne Bramwell, Wif'. Whitehead Chandler, and
Andrew Foster. Their process was indeed the re-
verse of that which is emisioyed by the benefactors
0.
t,
of mankind; their business' egrase
w_as to shut uatn
dPutoli
not to create it, to walk in qualities of
their footsteps as they trod ; .butarknetshe
mind developed by the phioX.hers and the
Wagner and
swindlers are almost equally rat•
to the° dignity
his confederates elevated forgery
slervice all the
of a science, and pressed into
advancement.
fine arts that could aid in its
Imitative penmanship, engrayingo die-sinking,
personation of the finest acting, a. d little ro-
mantics
dcomposed
flowing from imaginations alw,gys fruitful,
an
posed with the most minute' attention
to social probabilities and to the unitie's of time
and place, were all lavished upon the design
of doing one false act in the face of day, befoi'e the
practised eyes of men trained to examine that .Ict,
and to invest it with such a character of truth tha't
it should pass unchallenged and leave no track be-
hind it. It is a great fact in the progress of civili-
sation. It is a strong contrast to the clumsy crow-
bar and horse-pistol system of ruder times. To a
mere tyro in swindling it might seem an easy thing
to forge a cheque and receive the money for it ; but
Wagner and his friends knew that to do this with
any certainty of success and after-impunity is of the
highest order of difficulty. Ten years of meditation
over a previous miscarriage had taught the master
forger the arduous nature of his calling. If he failed,
he failed as Caesar Borgia failed, by an unfortunate
error in the objects upon whom he exercised his
treachery and his confidence.
The machinery of Wagner was after this way.
There lived an aged man bent with years and infir-
mities, who had passed his long lift in the laboru,ro
acquisition of a facility iu imitatine „per men's
signatures. The talent hs" sc-4.04 rructified in his
possession ena. 'Tun him living in a
of miserabl,-
lodging and in a single room, always. en -
those
u
writing, and by no means in possessi,'
advantages which so absolute a rower over the
signatures of all the bankers ..id all the money-
dealers of the city of Lonaon would appear likely
to confer. The talent of old Karp was the raw
material of Wagner machinery. There is a sec t
among the Chi.ese who make it a religious duty to
search for craps of writing and to consume them
by fir.. Perhaps the Chinese, who invented every-
thing, have had Wagners among them, and founded
the sect in order to keep down the Wagners, just
as mice may be said to be the propagators of the
race of cats. But Wagner, at any rate, was indus-
trious in the collection of autographs. Wagner was
more careful in preserving the letter of his lightest
acquaintance than the Countess of Ossory was in
laying up a note from Horace Walpole. When
Mr. Fellowes, a solicitor, entered into a cor-
respondence with Robert Humphreys as to the
terms of a projected lease, Wagner carefully put
the letter by; and when Dr. Jones wrote a note
about some equally common subject Wagner re-
marked that "it would come in nicely by and bye."
These precious signatures and scraps of writing
were taken to Kerp, and that industrious old man
laboured at them as models until he had acquired
the power of perfect imitation. The next and ob-
vious step was to utilise this power by writing a
false order for the passbook of the person whose
signature was intended to be falsified, for the pur-
pose of knowing for what balance they might safely
draw. Then c ime the engraving of the cheque,
and as it would not be quite safe to send the blank
to Somerset-house to be stamped, and as it was as
well to avoid even the slight suggestion of a sus-
picion which might possibly arise from the affixing
of an adhesive stamp, a die of the cheque stamp was
perfected after many trials, and the instrument
being filled up by Kerp, and the signature neatly
forged, the fraudulent instrument might be sup-
posed to be complete. A meaner mind would have
been satisfied, but not so Wagner. We must sup-
pose that Kerp, although the master penman, and
therefore necessary to the work of giving the true
style to the handwriting of the body of the cheque,
had his scholars among Wagner's friends. Why
should Wagner throw away any part of the booty
upon this old man ? His pupils, Bateman and
Chandler, could copy the forgery with su„f6^'-"
skill, and when the copies had bee- -"tie 11-erP's
original forgery was taker luck to him with "no
effects" written upon rhus was the old forger
cheated out of share in the produce of his origi-
nal wort--
Me next point, and the most difficult of all, was
the realisation of the amount. The presentation of
the cheque is to the forger what the moment of
projection is to the alchymist. It often passed
easily and prosperously ; but there are operations
which do not become more facile from repeti-
tion, and it was necessary not only to provide
for the honest division of the proceeds in case
of success, but also for the escape of the agent in the
eventuality of failure. When, for instance, the
confederates- had just obtained £440 for a cheque
originally forged by poor Kerp, but copied and
presented by Chandler, it was probable that the
face of the gentleman who arranged that transaction
at the counter would be likely to dwell upon the
memory of the cashier. It was easier to produce
cheques_than to find fresh agents to cash them; and
this was the weak point in Wagner's system.
Wagner addressed himself to this difficulty with
his accustomed ingenuity. The agent was always
provided with proof that he was himself the trust-
ing and innocent victim of some untraceable
scoundrel. The preparation for this purpose was
highly artistical. First the intended agent inserted
an advertisement in a newspaper for occupation.
To this advertisement he received an
canArry-er at a
an appointment to meet,,thagelly
coffee-house, cr - takeni
lodging.
The aunt kept the appointment, and there was met
by the disguised confederate, who was to bear the
onus of the possible discovery. The meeting was
made as publicly as possible, and the endeavour was
that the landlord and -waiters should be able to
swear distinctly to the identity of the agent, but
should know nothing of the disguised confederate.
Thus, if the dreaded catastrophe should happen—if
the agent should be stopped at the Bank, his inno-
cence was evident. He advertised for employment,
a sharper answered his advertisement, met him at a
coffee-house, and sent him to change the cheque.
The letters, the advertisement, and the perfectly
true evidence of the waiters, bear out this tale, the
agent goes scot free, and the only result of the
failure is the loss of the forged cheque. Other
precautions were, of course, taken upon the " Quis
custodiet custodes ?" principle. The agent was to be
watched lest he should run off with all the money ;
and, as it was better that it should be watched by
persons whom he could not identify, he was placed
at the corner of a street while those who were to
watch him passed among the crowd and made
themselves acquainted with his features.
This is the Wagner system as it has just been
developed during three days of investigation at the
Central Criminal Court. Its theory was perfect, but
it signally failed in practice. The forgeries ought
to be as much above suspicion as Ciesar's wife ; but
the ingenious deception put upon old Kerp had pro-
bably rendered the imitations less perfect than
those his cunning hand prepared. The theory re-
quires that the confederate who acts the swindler
at the coffeehouse should be untraceable ; but Wag-
ner played the part himself, and was traced ; and,
lastly, the working of machinery requires coherency
of action and proper test of materials ; but Wagner
was entrapped by a journeyman baker, whom he
had tempted and trusted without sufficient test, and
he was denounced by an accomplice. This ingenious
man had been working in full security of being in
utter darkness, when he was all the time living and
moving under the bull's-eye of a detective police-
man. Wagner and Bateman, the two principal
authors of this great assault uro:1 all commercial
confidence are now sentenced to penal servitude for
life• May we promise the bankers and merchants of
London that the career of these criminals is closed?
Ibte. is
33\o' etv difficult to say what the event may
as grave
men were once before convicted
of crimes
under sentencerave as those for which they are now
carried out and if their punishment had been
would not have lossesc they have now occasioned
both let out. Theoneurred. They were, however,
trial. They receiveud sualstory was told upon the
tickets
of leave, and, armed
with the recommendation
gaol and Colonel Jebb of the chaplain of the
, the priso i •
ns
were, after a comparatively shortn pector, they
let loose again to seek their prey. If some
system had been adopted whereby credulous chap-
lains and tender-hearted prison inspectors
made responsible for the damage suffered by
iNnvneroe
cent men at the hands of the ruffians they unleash:,
we should not flaw have to tell the fate of William
Wagner, or to condole with the bankers upon the
free exercise of his pernicious ingenuity.