The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-11-26

know all about the books and accounts
of the bank and have access to them
at all times. But this corps of acute
detectors is powerless against the COM
paratively bungling knavery invented
by Leonard.
There is no doubt that in the single
matter of the detections of forged
checks the average paying teller has
become reasonably expert. 1t is a fact,
however, that most banks of note have
in their possession collections of forged
signatures for which they have paid
literally. How impossible it is for a
bank TO be sure that all checks present
ed at it's windows are genuine may be
inferred from the fact that one New
York bank alone issues II, 600 900 checks
to it's customers every year, another
100000 and a third 100000
SCHEME THAT IS SOMETIMES
WORKED.
Nowadays the simple operation of
presenting a forged check by the hand
that forged it has grown unpopular
among the criminals who make banks
their prey. 1t has become an exceed
ingly risky act for a forger to take his
spurious handiwork, clever though he
believes it to be, into bank and lay
it before the critical gaze of the man
at the window. What he does some
times is to open an account with the
bank by presenting a genuine check
for collection and leaving the money
on deposit. This gives him a standing
at the bank even though the amount
of his deposit is trivial. After he has
become known through a few legiti-
mate transactions he may venture to
begin his evil work.
THE NOTORIOUS BIDWELL
BROTHERS.
This was the method adopted by the
notorious BidWen Brothers in 1873 in
their raid upon the Bank of England
After a career in dishonest practices
that made them marked men in Amer
lea, these clever swindlers transfer
ed their activity to Great Britain, hav-
ing convinced themselves that they had
discovered a way to beat the Bank Of
England. Their suspicion that the an
cient and hitherto invulnerable institu-
ton was sleeping was confirmed when
they sent a bill of exchange to London,
and it was cashed without Identified
ton. Then one of the brothers intro
duced himself to a respectable London
tailor as a rich American soiourning
temporarily in England and was in
turn introduced by the tradesman to
the manager of city branch of the
! Bank of England, in which Bidweu
made few small deposits.
PENAL SERVITUDE FOR LIFE.
Presently the foreigners began to
deal in spurious bills of exchange.
They forged bills for thousands of
pounds, stamped them with stamps
made by themselves and had them
cashed without question by the I'M
suspecting bank. They presented forg-
ed acceptances of the Earrings, the
Rothschild, the Anglo-Austrian bank,
the Russian Bank of Exchange and
many others and never met with the
slightest difficult in obtaining the cash
/ until a neglect in putting in a date
! started an investigation which brought
! their villainy to light. They fled with
much of the spoil, but We're captured
! by PinkertOn detectives, George in
! Scotland and Austin in Havana, and
! taken back to England for trial. They
/ had stolen altogether several million
/ dollars, and they were sentenced to
| penal servitude for life. After many
years at oakum picking they were sent
| TO America as ticket of leave men.
| Another famous and remarkably sue
|
was William Augustus Lippert. a ma
/ tive of Hamburg, Germany, an educat-
| ed man and the son of respectable
parents. He went TO Cape Town,
| South Africa, with letters of intro
duction from the most influential citi-
| zens of the Great German commercial
| city. He was welcomed by the English
| residents and at once embarked in
| speculative career which seemed to
| turr everything he touched into gold.
| He became the leader of the social
| world of the South African metropolis
and lived like a prince. He disappear
ed one day, and it speedily came to
light that he had forged checks to the
amount of over half million dollars on
two of the largest banking institutions
| at the Cape. Lippert was afterward
| captured in Cincinnati, O., and taken
| back to South Africa.
EDWIN a. SPARKS.