The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1886-11-28

than the personal desire OF few greedy
ward politicians
1t is not often that rascal shows SO
| much shrewdness in conducting his opera.
| tons as was manifested in the story of the
young plantation darkey who was arrested
in this town on Monday en- several charges
of forgery. Though ne seems TO be as
thick skulled as most of the people of his
race, he is an unusually skilful penman
and no two of half a dozen specimens of
his penmanship exhibited TO US by Chief
Murphy the other day bear evidence of
having been prepared by the same hand
He came on here from the District of Col
umbia to help his uncle, who is jauitor of
one of the business buildings on Mont
gomery street, and in his travels around
the offices saw checks lying on the desks.
They were something new to mis- gump-
ton, and his cnpidity was excited when
he was made acquainted with the fact that
they passed for money. Then he began to
acquaint himself with the methods of their
use; and it was not long before he had be-
come as skilful a banker as the bank clerks
themselves-and little sharper What
thief has even been equal to the ingenuity
of counterfeiting genuine check, and
leaving the counterfeit on the desk where
he first saw it to deceive its owner, while
he sent the original to the bank for the
cash That's just what this woolly- headed
plantation darkey did, and if he had had
the boldness to have presented the original
for payment himself, instead Of mailing 1t,
he would have received the money upon
It'll The failure of that check to produce
the cash convinced him that there was
something out of course in the collection
method he had adopted, and his subsequent
effort showed that he learned where the
hitch had been and had the ingenuity to
get around 1t without giving himself away
by going personally with the stolen check
to the teller's window. He captured
check drawn to tie order of lady named
Derlam, of this city. He endorsed her
name on the back, sent it with a note to a
pal in Washington, directed him to send
note in Mrs. Derlam's name to the cashier
of the First National Bank here-it had
been drawn on the First National Bank
requesting its payment, and ordering his
confederate, when the cash came to hand,
to send all but trifleof it on to him. The
confederate was to keep little balance
for bis trouble. He was even so particu-
lar as to enclose to his Washington CORE
spondeut the precise form of letter to be
sent on here for Cashier Conklin's decep-
ton and to instruct him how to address
his envelope. The check and the letter
arrived from Washington in due course of
mail, and President Young had had the
check certified for re transmission oWash-
ington, when the police dropped into the
bank TO make inquiry about it. Then. of
course, the whole scheme wss spoiled.
The forger was easily traced by means of
a decoy letter to Washington, and the
young plantation operator in this city fell
promptly into the hands of the police.
The remarkable ingenuity and skill he
displayed in all his operations should have
reaped him handsome rewards, and he
seems to have been pursued by genius of
bad luck in ali his transactions 1t
is good thing for the community
however, that he is no longer at
large. Another year of freedom for that
young Oakley would have made him very
dangerous bank expert. The probability
is tAat he will, in the new slavery to which
the Courts of Justice will condemn him,
forget all that he learned during his brief
residence in this city. and he'll have to
learn it all over again from the beginning.
Coed Move.