The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1895-01-31
DEVICES OF cOuHTERfEITERS
THE SECRET SERVICE KEPT BUSY
WITH THEIR INVENTIONS.
Counterfeit Coins and Photographed
Bius Amongst the Many Devices
of Showers of the Queer-Ar
rests More Numerous.

New devices OF cOunlclhC'S- oSVh
keeping the treasury oihcialS on sehter-
T;'o, The business of altering the de-
ram;nations of Uncle Sans notes and
nertifcates has been having great Doom,
and ingenious criminals are nndlng
nnUe, use for old confederate shinpias-
tors in connection with this peculiar
branch of the industry. They cut out
Tho Numbers from these worthless Sc
curities and insert them in place OF the
originol ones, helping out the enect by
means of colored pencils and inks. linus
tbav change one dollar and two doilar
hills into five, tens and twentles' II Is
a fact that confederate notes are louay
NOT wholly without value. Inev COM
moud a market price of two cents apiece,
being chiefly in demand for traudulenl
Durposes Great numbers OF thelI uie
passed every year dpon ignorant loreisn
ers in this country, especially IN ne"
York and Chicago. A., oto
Tho most admired experts in the note,
roisingline IN to date are a man nameu
Frecland and his wife Belle, who, !op-
Grated in Chicago for a while, making
much trouble for the police. They were
actually artists in their way, the Dlils
altered by them being so eXcellently
done that there was no trouble III pass.
ing them. But they were caught at
length and sent to prison. President
| Cleveland pardoned the woman only the
other day because she had given birth 10
child in jail and theinfant needed hef
care. This kind of fraud is wholly nov
city, having grown up within the last TWO
or three years. 1t was carried on SO eX-
tensively short time ago that the author-
tiles became alarmed, and che utmost Ell
e. IL, lyyt m
ferret out and punish the offenders. AS
result no fewer than 40 persons were ar
rested for making and passing raised notes
during the last year, and it is believed that
this form of crime has been well-nlgh
stamped out, for the time being, at least.
SO attractive is the business to the UNI
scrupulOus that even boys have gone into
it. Two youths in their teens. named
Esterbrook and Chaplin, near Portland.
Me-, were caught raising two dollar notes
to tens. They used colored inks. Ac-
cording to their statemtnts they got the
idea from reading accounts of such doings
in the newspapers. A very successful
operator in this line, caught during the
last year, was a mulatto named Walter
Jackson. He was better known as "the
jap because he looked somewhat like q
Japanese He was only IS years old and
had been mill hand at Homestead, Pa.
He passed altered notes of his own manu-
facture in Philadelphia, Baltimore and
Washington. his profits being so consid-
cradle that he could afford to travel. A
girl in millinery shop dropped" to his
game, and he ran away, leaving behind
him a big book containing twelve raised
greenbacks. In the book were also two
written cards bearing the name of Walter
jackson and the address Homestead.
This gave a clew, and the detectives, by
watching the mails at Homestead, located
the man in Philadelphia. He was arrest
ed here in August last. Colored pencils,
brushes and confederate money were
found in his possession.
The chief reason for the remarkable sue
cess Of the secret service in hunting down
the rascals is that it is far more easy to
capture a nOte-raiser than cOunterfeiter.
The latter does not usually circulate his
own stuff, preferirng to dispose of it to
go-betweens and "shovers" Thus it is
apt to be hard to discover and lay hands
upon the manufacturer of false money.
But the criminal who merely alters the
face of the currency usually passes his
product himself. Some of the notes thus
treated are marvelously done, and will
stand fair scrutiny, though they are
easily detected by holding them between
Alit NN Z ullNl lllt llShl.
Another skillful worker in the business
recently captured was Henry Wood, alias
Blake, who was formerly in the regular
army as an enlisted man, and served in
the Modoc war. Finding himself dead
broke in San Francisco it occurred to
him to raise the wind by altering notes.
lie passed great many in San Francis
co, Sacramento and Oakland, becoming
locally notorious as the bill raiser. For
a long time he puzzled the police, but was
finally taken red-handed. His stock in
trade consisted of lot of Confederate
notes, pencils of various cOlors, and
bottle of mucilage. He was regularly in
correspondence with persons in Atlanta,
Ga, from whom he obtained his supplies
of Confederate scrip.
There has been an extraordinary activ-
ity in the counterfeiting industry during
the last year. The number of arrests
for such offenses has been greater than in
any previous twelve months in the history
of the secret service. Enormous quanti-
ties of false notes and coins have been
thrown into circulation. A number of
of the governments fibre pa
per have made their appearance One of
these IS S2O-note consisting of two pieces
of paper pasted together with scatter
eu HlamentS or SILK between. In last
March a dangerous counterfeit of the
~ treasury note of 1891 turned I'D,
printed on paper containing silk threads,
In June of this year a conspiracy was
in Hamburg and Leipsic, Ger
many, for the COunterfeiting of United
States silver certificates and Bank of
England notes on a large scale. Half
million dollars worth of the limitations
were captured, together with the Grimm
ais.
During the last fiscal year counterfeit
COINS have been issued in alarming duan-
titles. Thirty-siX Italians were arrested
Tor making and passing this kind of cur
rcncy, TO the private production of which
people of this nationality seemto be spec-
.@"% indicted. Thcy work in gangs and
employ processes of the most primitive
description. At the same time there is
no evidence of any advance artistically
IN this branch of counterfeiting. which
IS regarded as beneath the attention of
the ,hlghSrade criminal. The necessary
mechanical equipment of plaster of Paris
for molds and cheap metal composition
being within easy reach of all, there is