The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-29

petlel anu leSS ullIerenC rom the orlSl- | nal. In the hair, too, there Is faulty ! work. In the genuine bill the hair is l brushed straight back, and despite the angle at which the head IS set, the hair on the left side can be seen as well as that on the right The fine lines can be distinctly made out with the naked eye on the sides and top In the coun- terfeit the hair is not drawn with lines, but is solid work, and none can be seen on the left side It is cleverly shaded, however, and looks remarkably like the | original. The hair Is worst on top of the head. It runs into the background, while on the genuine bill it stands out in relief
 It is the faulty picture which has had more to do with the detection of coun- terfeits than anything else. An officer of the United States secret service, when asked to explain this almost uni versal defect In commercials, said:
 Remember in the first place that the counterfeiter engages Just as few men in the actual manufacture of bogus money as he can get along with. The showers rarely know who is making the money or where 1t is made, so they can be engaged without number. But the makers are at the mercy of one an other, so the fewer in charge of a plant the better So it rarely happens that more than one engraver is in gang. Now, it is a fact that the figure and let ter engraver, no matter how skillful he may be, cannot do perfect portrait work Neither can the portrait engra- yer do perfect line work. Each eXcels in his own speciality. In the making of a counterfeit note there is about ten times as much line work to do as there is portrait work, so that the engraver who is in a counterfeit gang is almost invariably figure and letter man. He does perfect work in his line, but he can't do the portrait work, hence the faulty pictures in all commercials.
 Now the government has staff of engravers, the best to be found in the land. It has specialists for the portrait work and specialists for the letter and number work, so that the American bank note is model of engraving. Some of these days an expert portrait man is going to get in with an expert letter and number man, and then we're going to have trouble. One satisfaction is that it's never going to be possible to make perfect counterfeit, and no mat ter how good the note may be, it can not go undetected for long"
 Tn several accounts of the new one hundred dollar counterfeit published, it has been stated that it was made by a photographic process. This is not so. It is an engraved note, printed from metal plate.
 The faults in the bill, outside of those in the picture are few. The "J' in James" is different from that in the genuine bill only in the size of the loop. There is a full loop in the bogus, while it is scarcely more than an .'L" turned around in the genuine. The name James Monroe is in letters so minute that this is scarcely noticeable, even when making comparisons.
 The plate from which the bill is printed is a quarter of an inch short and the seal of the government is of a lighter shade of carmine than the gen. uine. That about winds up the faults of the counterfeit The lettering, num- bering, parallel ruling and lathe work are pretty nearly perfect.
 The result of the discovery of this counterfeit is astonishing. Banks and business houses decline to take one hundred dollar silver certificates of the new issue. It was recorded in the newspapers several days ago that a man in placing his money in wager down south offered the stakeholder one thousand dollars in one hundred dollar silver certificates. Both the stakehold- CT and the other bettor objected to the money because there are so many commercials of that issue that no one but an expert can tell the difference" The man had to send to Washington to have his one hundred dollar bills changed, because the local banks and business houses refused to handle them. MT. Holler, when asked if there was any clue to the identity of the makers of the counterfeit, said that he was not in a position to discuss the matter
 T will say this much, however" he said. "There is to-day alive and at lib- erty noted counterfeiter In Profess sonal Criminals of Amercia,' ex-Chief of Poice Byrnes' book he is recorded as dead He is not dead, however. That is all l can say"
 . lEt OIuctlS oI llit secret StTNlCt H6N- CT talk to anybody but their superors about cases in hand, and decline to say a word about the makers of this most , dangerous new counterfeit.
 A splendid example of the photo-lith- , ographic counterfeit in the collection mentioned is bogus five dollar silver certificate, which made it's appearance only a few months ago. It is as fine a counterfeit of its kind as has ever been produced, but at best the photo graphic productions are crude and not , apt to deceive any one used to hand ,, ling money. The counterfeiters who manufacture them do so because it is a comparatively easy way to turn out bogus money, and they know that with :, little care they can pass many hun
 dred dollars worth of commercials be- fore further operations are made i'm , possible by warnings from Washing. ton.
 , The first commercials ever turned out in this country were made by the pho. = tographic process. By the old process , the letters, numbers, and sometimes the
 whole back of note, were copied 1T F black and then tinted with pen anG
 brush until the exact colors of the orig. , inal were reproduced. This process f | gave way as the business advanced tC