The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1863-01-31
Counterfeit Money,

Mr. w. l.. Ormsby, Of New York, de
livered, on Thursday evening, Ja1. ~. al
Chicago, a lecture on The Alarming Pre-
valence of fCounterieitipg Money Cause
and Cure" The following is an extract
from the concluding portion of helecturc:
| Thus, so far as the limits of lecture
would permit, ] have demonstrated that,
while we have the most extensive currency
in the world, We have also the worst; that
while our notes are the most beautiful.
they are the most open to counterfetiDg
that there Is popular inability to distin-
guish the good m ,ney from the bad that
out OF five thousand fraudulent notes, less
than five hundred are the production Of
counterteiters; that the felony Of passing
counterfeit money is frequently practiced
| with impunity, and the moral sense of
the community deadened to the commIs-
| sion of a great crime that this fearful state
| cf things is growing rapidly worse, as
| shown by the statistics Of the last six
| years; that the first counterfeit a hunnre red
years ago was produced in substantially
the same way as the last that the treasu-
ry notes of Prussia, Austria, Turkey, and
| America, have been in turn counterieited
by the same process that was adopted by
the first couuterfeiter, and discarded by
| the Bank OF Eng land nearly half a century
ago; that this system of engraving is
, system OF counterfeiting in its very nature,
and peculiarly adapted to the production
of fraudulent currency that the evils of
our currency result from the multiplicity
OF banks OF the same name from the ia
cility with which alterations are made
from lower TO higher denomination, or
from one state to another; from the re-
peated use Of the same deyices on different
notes; from the extensive application OF
machine work. which makes counterfeit
ers OF mechanics; from the facility of Sc
curing the aid Of capable artists TO do the
counterteits - uu known to themselves
from the constant reissue of deiaced and
mutilated notes; from the multiplicity of
old bank note plates containing the work
OF skilled engravers; from the failure of
absurd schemes for the prevention OF coun-
terfeiting; from the loose system OF bank
ing, enabling the issue of wild cat money
from the dishonesty of bank-note direc-
tors; from the absence Of any official list
of good banks, and from the laXity Of the
law regarding counterfeiters detecting in
the act; that governments instead of sup
pressing Sounterieiting have aided it; that
the law OF thIs.State Is openly violated 10y
connivance Of the Bank Department; that,
money must risk being cheated by one or
another Of dozen different trauls per.
tanning either to the yepuineness of the
note or the soundness of the bank that
our postal currency has not escaped the
doom which has attached to similar pro.
duction5 during the past century
! have shown that to remedy these glar-
ing evils, We must stop the establishment
of different banks bearing the same name;
we must engrave bank note so that it
cannot be altered IN any part wiihou; de-
stroi iug the whole; We must make it a
criminal oii;-nse for one bank to initiate
the notes OF another in artistic design We
must cause bank-note engraving TO be done
by artists anu engravers, instead of capi-
t4iists and mechanics; we must eugraye
each note as new whole and original de
-ign, so that the coIn,erseiter will be COM
pelied TO do the work himself instead of
being ablC 10 employ Innocent coniede-
rates we must cease the reissue of defaced
and mutliated notes we must enforce the
law giving the government the custody of
the old plates: We must, by scientific in
vesticat!on and extensive Ietormatory le.
gI,lation, amend our entire system OF en-
craving, a. well as Of banking; we must
have n uniform system of laws throughout
the country regulating the currency: we
must have an official list of the good
banks; We must strngentiv enforce the
few salutary laws we have 10 prevent. as
well to punish, the issue OF fraudulent
money.