The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1886-11-27
Tricks i'm Bank Notes.
Ne,o York Mail and Ecpress.

NeU York Mail and Ecpress.
There is a white-haired, sharp-eyed
little man in the treasury, who has been
one of the features of the place for years.
While not readily accessible to ordinary
visitors, he can, on presentation of
letter of introduction, render himself an
extremely interesting parsonage, mas.
much as he is perfect storehouse of
anecdotes, which he relates with all the
charm of an accomplished raconteur.
Into this gentleman's hands, speaking
metaphorically, I happened to fall, and
it required no particular effort to make
the official talkative. He was inspecting
at the moment a spurious 500 note,
and this circumstance gave rise to his
first anecdote.
Il tell you,' he said, there is appa-
rently no limit to the clever tricks of
counterfeiters. Just look at this note.
|, II doubtless deceived over hundred
people before it came into our hands.
| know for fact that it was accepted
as genuine by bank teller in high stand
ing, and yet the instant certain young
woman in one of our departments let
her experienced eye fall upon it, she de-
tected its worthless character. The neat
workmanship on this bill reminds me of
case which came to our notice some
time ago. A counterfeiter had got up
a number of 500 notes on six separate
banks. The copy used was on bank
which made its SIoo notes in this style.
On one end of the paper was an engrav-
ing of a ship, the yard-arm of which ran
between two delicate fourishes under
meath the word the, which was the first
word of the name of the bank of issue;
as for instance, The National Bank of
the Republic, or the First National Bank.
The fraud would have been particular
ly neat one had the counterfeiter made
his notes payable by the same bank from
which he obtained his original specimen.
Instead of being sufficiently shrewd,
however, to avail himself of that pre-
caution, or perhaps through an excess
of caution, he made them payable by
six other banks. Each of these latter
institutions had one distinctive feature
on the face of their 500 notes. The
yard arm of the vessel, instead of run
ming between the two minute fourishes
barely touched the outside of the -four
ish nearer the top of the note, and ap-
preached closer to the word the by the
sixteenth of an inch. Of course the
counterfeit, which was capital piece
of workmanship with the one exception
mentioned, deceived merchants easily,
and deceived many tellers as well. The
moment the notes passed through the
hands of lynx-eyed young lady at the
treasury she discovered their spurious
quality in twinkling.'
YOUNG woMEN'S EYES.
1T must be difficult, then,' I remark
ed, ito hoodwipk your clever female
clerks? How do they educate their
eyes7'
'By constantly running over money.
To casually watch these women at work
you would probably imagine that their
sole aim was simply to count the money
as rapidly as possible. Not so. A clerk
will take pile of bills, tightly fastened
together by rubber bands, and without
so much as loosening the fastenings, she
will begin to count at a lightning rate
by merely turning over quickly the up
per right hand corner of each note.
Still, though she had only such small
portion of the note for her guide, she
will discover a counterfeit readily. Let
me relate little incident which happen
ed while the Seventh regiment was in
the city. Some of the boys, among
them a paying teller from a New York
bank, paid us call, looking very ele-
CANT in their tasteful uniforms. They
were engaged for several moments in
watching the clerks count money in the
manner described.
Suddenly one of the young women
snapped a note from the package which
she was running over. After she had
thrown it aside in an apparently careless
manner, picked it up and handed it to
the visitors for inspection. 1t was passed
from one to another without eliciting
any special comment. Finally it reach
ed the man whom knew to be a pay
ing teller. He examined it for a mo.
ment, and returned it to my possession
without word. I asked him if he had
noticed anything peculiar in regard to
it. He replied in the negative. And
vet it was an ingenious counterfeit, as
the experienced eye of the clerk had de-
tected the instant she had turned up
corner of it,
SPLITTING NOTE IN TWO.
is it possible, I asked, sfor note to
be so split in two as to show both sides
of it intact2'
sOh, yes; and it is very easily done.
You procure certain kind of gum, and
paste the note face downward to piece
of paper. Then you paste another piece
of paper over the back of the note. By
carefully pulling the two pieces apart
the fiber of the note will split, and what
looks like difficult transaction is easily
accomplished. Nothing, however, can
be gained by the operation. If one half
of such bill were forwarded to us for
redemption, we would return to the
sender one half of its face value. Sharp
ers indulge occasionally in little game
which consists of piecing notes. That
is, they will make nine notes out ofeight,
each note being pieced once. When
you come to measure them you will find
they are precisely one-eighth shorter
than they should he. Merchants are
readily duped by them, but rarely bank
CASHIER
sWhat is the rule relative to the re-
demption of mutilated currencyf'