The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1888-08-25
BOGUS MONEY.
he Work of Counterfeiters Dur
ing the Last Eleven Years.
|wo Million Dollars in Bad
Money Captured.

bake you and rich for the rest OF our
YES" said secret serv;c, official to a
Washington correspondent of the New
Tork Herald.
The conversation took place in one OF
he rooms Of the secret service division
the treasury department, and 'there"
Tas vault from which messengers
rere carrying little canvas bags and
Iackages doae up in Manila paper and
ealei with red wax.
..But l am afraid" the official con-
Enuel, "that it wouldn't do u, much
God. There are couple of million
ollars there, but every cent of it is DO
kus."
The "queer" was being taken out of
| he secret service vaults to be exami ned
bya committee appointed by the Sec
keta-y of the treasury for that purpose,
breviouI to being destroyed. 1t is
kleven years age since the last counter
! eit money in tie treasury was de-
|troyed, and these Sc, COO, 600 represent
The work of the couaterfeitirg fraternity
Bircc that time. Whenever a shower of
|he queer is captured with any bogus
huff on him the money is sent to Wash
|ngton, where it lies in a vault until
Enough has accumulated, when it is de-
|troyed. Each capture is kept separate
IRON the others and the bogus coin is
treated Just the same as if it were United
States money juIt issued from the mint.
The number and the letter A refer to
record and complete inventory which
5 kept of every case.
1--WE have in that collection" said
(he Secret Service man, "gold and sill
yer and everything in the shap, of pa
Der from one cent revenue stamp up
10 $1,000 government bond, which is
The largest bond that has ever been
eounterieited. There are 20S Of the
$1,000 bonds which were made by the
great firm of Brockway Smith & Doyle,
probably the three greatest men in their
business we have ever known. Some
of the work on these bonds is finer than
The genuine, but that is accounted for
when you remember that Smith was the
engraver who did the work for the gov
eminent, and when he went into bust
ness for him self he improved on his first
effort.
Stories connected with this money!
Well, Ishould say. Here is some stuff
(and here he picked upa bag of half dol
lars), which was taken from a gang OF
eighteen that operated in West Virginia
in 1889 and 1898. Their leader was
member of the State Legislature, and
when we Jagged him at last he boosted
Of having spoken on the floor of the
House with counterfeit money in his
pockets. No, / can't tell you his name
because since his release from prison,
where We sent him, he has been living a
respectable life and is now In business
In West Virginia and is doing well.
There's some stuff we captured at
Oswego, n. y, in 1880. The brains of
that gang was Mrs. Ingersoll, and
pretty bad woman she was, too. Two
OF her daughters were with her, and as
they were very pretty girls the old
woman found them very useful in fas-
chatting young men of a certain class.
50 that at last they were willing to do
anything that the girls wanted.
This package recalls tragedy. 1t
was made by big gang in Indiana
some years ago, and when our men
went to arrest them one of the fellows
shot an officer through the hand, and
ne promptly returned the fire and shot
the man through the heart"
us there much counterfeiting going
on at the present timer
mo, very little. You see it takes a
good deal of money to counterfeit notes.
There must be good cngraver, a man
who knows his business thoroughly,
and first class printer. 1t takes from
FIX months to a year to cngrave the
plates, and during that time tho men
have to live"
Besides the So, 900 of bogus
money there are millions of dollars in
what are known as ''fash" notes.
ihese limitations are greenbacks used
i0f advertising purposes, and although
~ey were not got up for fraudulent