Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1909-04-08
Catching Counterfeiters.

successful character In fiction, serves
as a model for real detective work.
The following story. from the Boston
Herald, shows how the working by
potheses of Conan Doyle:s detective
have been put in practical operation.
This time it was a counterfeiting case.
A teller in a Philadelphia bank had
noticed that two. hundred.dollar Mon
roe head silver certificates had seals
were that "off. color.
He did not think for an instant
that the notes were counterfeit, for
they looked absolutely perfect. he
merely thought that the red ink used
on the seals was bad, and took the
notes to Washington ard showed them
to the officials.
At the Treasury Department it was
plain that the notes were not like
those turned out by the government
itself. Still. it was not imagined that
they we're counterfeit. 1t was thoug ght
that the two noes had been stolen
from the Office of engraving and
printing, and that the seals had been
added afterward.
1t occurred to only one-Assistsnt
Chief Moran, of the Secret Service
Bureau-that something was radically
wrong, but nobody believed him. The
notes stood the regular tests. They
seemed indentical, with notes fresh
from the vaults. But ..Moran soaked
one Of the suspected notes in hot wat
er 1t split in halves.
The criminals were thus seen to be
hlgh-class men. They had split one
dollar silver-certi6cates, had bleached
the backs of them, and had thus been
enabled to use genuine paper in the
manufacture of their spurious two
hundred dollar bills.
The counterfeit notes were next ex
amiued by experts. They found that
ls dye work must have taken about
six months. This led the detectives
back to the fall of 1897. The experts
also SAID that the notes showed the
work of ,wo men, portrait engraVer
and square-letter man. The pro-
blem now, was to find two eDgravers
capable OF doing this quality OF work.
who during the latter six months Of
1897, We're probably absent from their
customary employment.
Philadelphia, in proportion to Its
populatlon, is known to contain more
expert engravers than any other city
in the country. Moreover, the coun-
terfeits had turned up in that city. So
Moran and Chief Wilkie went there.
Wllkie disguised himself by letting
his beard grow. The two chummsd
with the engravers of the city, psrtlc'
ularly with the go.sips among them.
Soon they heard that Taylor and Bre'
dell lad been in business for them
selves since :ahout the middle Of the
year 1897. They had left their reg
ular work and had opened shop OF
their own, but charged such high
prices that they got no business. Yet
they were wearing diamonds and tax
ing trips in special cars to Florida.
1t was a moral, but not yet legal
certainty that these were the men
wanted. For fourteen months the se-
cret SERVED men worked on this case,
and during the time not wordgot out
They told the Philadelphia police
nothing. In all, thirty secret service
men were shadowing the suspects.
A complication was introduced by
a cigar manufacturer who was using
counterfeit internal revenue stamps
Twelve persons were finally implicat.
ID, including prominent lawyers IN
Philadelphia, When the gang was
rounded in, every member went to
prison and the work Of the secret ser
vice was justified.
kitty" said her mother, rebuk-
iugly, you must sit still when you
are at the table"
II can't, mamma, protested the
little girl, I'm a 6dgetarian.