Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-30
NEVER A PERFECT JOB
MEN CANNOT ACCURATELY COUN-
TERFEIT COIN OR NOTE.
Views Of W. p. Hazen, Former Chief
Of the United States Secret
Service.

'1t Is apparently an absolute impossible
ity for a man to make a perfect counter
felt coin or note said William p. Hazen,
formerly chief Of the United States secret
service, few days ago.
| ut IL certain" he continued, that a per-
| feet counterfeit has never been made, and.
strange as 1t may appear. with all the will
| and endeavor In the world. the counterfeit
ers seem to be wholly unable to complete a
perfect job, although they get many details
| Of the bill or coin to absolute perfection.
Some strange power appears to get pos
session Of these criminals at crucial mo-
ment in their fraudulent work. and to rem
der their art vain. The real reason for this
1 have never been able to fathom.
| 1T may be psychic. You may smile
some people will-but the criminals them
| selves so far as I have ever talked with
| them on the subject after We have cap
tured them, have indicated to me that they
| believe 1t is conscience which balks them. "
| During his term as head Of the secret
| service Mr.. Hazen had a large experience
| with counterfeiters, the record for captures
| those years being larger one than later
| times have shown. Having noted that all
! counterfeits were defective in some particu-
! lar, he made inquiries as to the reason OF
| this.
| II is not, Dy the way. always Dy TeaSOH
| Of a defect that counterfeit is detected.
| Sometimes suspicion is raised merely by an
| indefinable feeling on the part of a Treas
| ury or bank employe that bill or coin does
| not look or feel just right, and then exami-
| nation discloses the fatal error in the bogus
| money.
Even the most expert engravers," Mr..
! Hazen said, land it of course is we'll known
| that some of the best have gone into the
| counterfeiting business, cannot turn out
in their counterfeit work the perfect re-
suits which they can readily get in legiti-
| mate work. With counterfeit bonds 1t is
| the same as with notes and coin.
| Zone of the most remarkable cases oc-
| Cured with the counterfeiting Of the old
United States 1905 by the notorious
| Brockway-Smith gang. One Of the men,
bers of that gang got his freedom by offer
| ing to go to Washington and pick out the
| spurious from the good bonds, for the gov
eminent experts themselves could not do II
| at first. He was Charles Uhlrich, who is
| straight now, one of the few of whom that
can be said.
Conscience 1nterfered.
He said at some point or other con-
| science was sure to prevent him from max
| ing a perfect job at crooked work. The
| only error in those bond plates was In the
| lath- work border. Up in one corner of this
| border the counterfeit was not uniform in
| it's lines.
Thomas johnson, now dead. who made
| had a curious experience with his plates
| He made five plates, each one wrong In
some minor particular. In one plate the
| error was in the right eye, which was so
| drawn that it gave the portrait the appear
ance on close examination of being cross
| eyed
HE said that when he was making that
part of the plate he was frightened by some
| noise, thing that would not have bothered
| him in the least if he was at honest work,
as he was an expert engraver. Had 1t not
| %l,@ 1aAo r-ar,11 how
| been a finer one than the government used,
| for it gave a clearer impression.
I'm another plate he used he got the let.
| tiers in two reversed, so that they read
| 'owt,' and yet the bills printed from that
plate got into circulation.
johnson was even better engraVer
| than Ulrich. and in each Of the four plates
he made after the first one to counterfeit
| this bill he endeavored to correct an error,
| yet in each one he made another error. He
| simply could not help 1T. he said, SO long
as he was at the crooked work.
His last error-that is, the one on the
| last of the five plates-was In the treasury
numbers. In that the g was not uniform
with the rest Of the numerals So through
| out the series of plates he would correct
one error only to make another, and no
effort would save him from making one.
A Misspelled Word.
"a person would scarcely believe that a
| five-dollar bill with the word owing spelled
| 'ownig' could get into circulation, but this
| happened with bank note counterfeited
after one of the Tamaqua, Pa, bank. In
another instance the word thousand came
| out on the counterfeit Thousand
"Who pays attention to cent-especfaily
| in New York? But one gang circulated
| bogus cents They had a good plate, but
| the copper they bought was not of uniform
quality and the Indians head came out
| clumsly.
."rhese people operated largely in Boston
and got little girls to put the cents in cir
| culation through Chinese laundries, which
use a lot of cents. The girls would go to
the laundries with bundles of a hundred
cents. of which perhaps 30 per cent would
| be good coins. and they would get change
| from the Cinnamon. These counterfeiters
were caught finally.
sThe counterfeit half dollars and quar-
| ters which were circulated so largely had
only slight defects, and they were such
| that any one would say that there was no
excuse for them in the work of expert
criminals But they went through the
| banks of the car companies ana were de
| tected at the treasury.
."rhese coins were made of silver 1924
| fine or so points fiper than the United
States coin silver. But in the j0-cent piece
| the word half was spelled hale and in
| the quarters the % was dropped below the
| line in one plate, while in another the L
was above the line.
This reminds me of 5o-kroner note OF
| the Swedish Bank, the only defect of which
was in the water mark. in which the o
| leaned toward the 80 The maker of that
note we caught here. He had his plant in
Brooklyn. He shot himself
II remember one bogus note in which the
| counterfeiter failed to make the little drops
| of water that in the good note trickle from
| the oar. That may have been mere over
sight.
.In another instance counterfeit plate
| was perfect except for the lack of a cross
| ing of It The maker of that plate was
run down and caught eventually, but not
| until after a long chase and until he had
done other work.
One Mans Curiosity.
HE acknowledged that he had purposely
left the crossing off the It in order to find
out how long it would be before the govern
ment got on to the fact that counterfeit
of that particular note was in circulation.
So soon as the counterfeit was advertised
from Washington he crossed the t in the
plate and printed more plates but an error
in the plates discovered afterward made
that attempt failure also.
1T seems a queer thing, but people often
write to Washington asking to have coun-
terfeit notes coin redeemed. 1t is pos
cib1 70 ha1 ha ba hee