Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-30
C0unterfeit and Altered NzGneys
 rE1ro,,, 4I,a VUao1,ir1t,D


 It is notorious that the work of counter feiting is carried on as a trade-or perhaps profession. It is not well known that men raake business of altering notes and cutting off pieces of them, and patching them togeth- CT to make more notes than the originals The number of notes that have been dealt with in this manner shows that regular profession in this line exists. The old practice of cut ting ten or twelve notes into ten strips and making .therefrom one more than the original number has been discontinued. It got to be too ancient a trick, and one too readily detected. The work of the latter day artists in altering notes is somewhat more elaborate. One way IS to raise the figures on the notes. The bodies of nearly all the notes are identical. The operator will take g one dollar bill and two dollar bill, cut the figures denoting the denominations of the two-being careful to avoid cutting away too much of the note to render it redeemable at less than it's full value-and carefully cut out the figures of the one and substitute the fig ure two therefor. He thus has 8 two dollar bill for his one and his original two dollar bill probably, because not more than one tenth of it has been destroyed. This is very cunning way of doctoring notes. As people generally count money by picking up the right hand corner of each note, detection of changed notes is in the ordinary course of business not very easy. All the counters in the redemption division are excellent detectives of crooked money. The other day one of them had 8 package of notes frem a bank to count. She made out one dollar more than the figures on the package denoted. She counted them over again and again, but brought out the same result. She told MT. Davidge, the chief of the division, who counted the package and found a ''raised' two-dollar note which accounted for the dol lar over The bank sending in the package evidently knew that it was worth but dollar, and did not count it as more. The figures used in raising the notes of higher denomina- tions are generally taken from the old frac- tionel currency, as they are Identical or very nearly so. Another way of changing notes is to manipulate ten-dollar and @ hundred dol lar note by splitting of the body of the for mer. Then by pasting it on the ten and chang ing around there comes from the $110 the sum of $210 in pretty good shape. This plan of working things has been but recently devel- oped. Another kind of work is evidently done by one man or a firm. The notes operated upon are tens of the issue of 1869 and all are treated in the same way. They come in from a belt from St. Louis to Memphis, and are evi- dently systematically worked. The notes are cut from one corner to the other diagonally in zigzag manner. It has been impossible to discover exactly how anything is made out of this operation, but it is evident that, from the manner of cutting, the operator somehow succeeds in getting enough pieces to make 8 new note. The men working up this scheme are evidently doing large business as many notes cut olagonally zigzaS are IeceHeu Dy MT. Davidge's division. The alteration of United States notes is carried on all over the country, but the West is the section where it is most extensively in practice: The altered notes are disposed of to g certain extent in the same way that counterfeit notes are showed" The great field of operation for the altered note industry is. however, among banks just started. The officers and clerks of new bank ing institutions are somewhat green and nat urally anxious to receive deposits. The man with the altered notes goes in and makes deposit, and @ day or two after draws it out again. Of course he does not get the same money that he puts in, and the bank has to forward the original deposit after discovery of its character to Washington to be redeemed as mutilated currency, for what 1t is worth under the regulations. The same bank sell dom gets bitten twice.