RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 120, 14 February 1940, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events (By Kickshaws.) .Maybe folk are equal when they are born, but tho graduated income tax in most countries soou disillusions them. We note that a young American plans to go round the world on all fours. Well, we have heard of some folk who have gone round on the flat of their back. ■CI V * Experts in most countries, it is said, are trying to discover a method to paralyse the ignition system of internal combustion engines. There are some alleged mechanics who seem to have discovered the secret. « « * It is reported that a forgery ring has been discovered in Canada and counterfeit notes worth 278,000 dollars have been seized by the police. Experts report that the notes are clever counterfeits and there is reason to suspect that the Nazi authorities are behind the gang. This may well be the case, for it will be recalled that in 1930 it was revealed in a legal case in Berlin that the Soviet authorities held counterfeit English. American and Chinese notes forged to the nominal extent of £500,000,000. The judge refused to admit these facts as evidence, but recognized the general principle that “the forging of bank notes was a political weapon employed by States engaged iu hostile intrigue.” The effect of the unloading of millions of pounds’ worth of forged notes is to cause a glut of money with rising prices and subsequent disorganization of business and trade. The task, however, is to unload millions of pounds’ worth of notes on a community the size of a nation without the fact being discovered.

It is probably safe to say that it is virtually impossible to unload forged notes on any community in sufficient quantities to cause economic repercussions without that community discovering the fact. Far more care is taken in cheeking up on bank and other monetary notes than is realized. Every note when issued is accounted for aud entered with its number in an appropriate manner. Even the printing of the numbers on the notes is checked. Elaborate precautions are taken, moreover, to make it impossible for two notes to circulate for any length of time with identical numbers. The total number of notes in circulation and in reserve is known very accurately from day to day. The introduction of huge quantities of uotes so cleverly forged that they might escape detection could not pass unnoticed for a period sufficiently long for the monetary balance to become endangered. Long before this situation had arisen the increase in uotes would have been discovered and steps taken to withdraw tho counterfeits. One can swindle an individual with a forged note, but not a nation.

There are many difficulties which forgers of bank uotes encounter, depending on tlie note and tlie paper. Bank of England notes, for example, have long troubled forgers, and probably will continue to do so. The paper on which these “crisples” are printed is believed t.o be inimitable, it is manufactured in secrecy and contains a watermark that cannot be exactly produced except at the factory in the South of England. Incidentally, it'is an offence to photograph a bank note, or even a coin of the realm. The Bank of England’s notes are printed in one colour, and almost any forger could produce a passable copy of the printing. If it is tlie paper and not the colour that safeguards Britain’s bank notes, on the Continent something more ornate and more complicated is preferred. About 15 years ago the German authorities themselves searched for some design that would defeat the forger. It was decided to reproduce four of Holbein’s pictures, all Portraits, one original being at. Windsor Castle, on the 10, 20, 50 and 100 mark notes. Tlie work of this artist was selected because it was found that any attempt to reproduce one of these portraits from any source but the original produced a subtle change iu the eves, making detection certain. » » »

In spite of the difficulties of forging notes, there have been several extremely clever efforts to fool the public, but only one on a scale so large that it may be considered to have hud international repercussions. Some 10 years ago a gentleman named Maraug approached a firm of note manufacturers near Loudon. He stated to the chairman of this firm that, a group of financiers had decided to assist th» Portuguese colony of Angola, then financially embarrassed. He produced documents, subsequently proved to be forged, authorizing a man named Reis to print notes to Hie value ot £2,000,000. He also produced the Bank of Portugal's authority for these notes. Specimen notes attached depicted portiaits of the poet Devos. Marang impressed the need for secrecy and all correspondence with tlie Bank of Portugal first passed through his hands. Ibu notes were duly printed. They proved to be identical with tlie authorizeu issue and incapable of quick detection, even by the Bank of Portugal. So great was the chaos produced, and so difficult, were the notes to detect, in view of the fact that the one firm iiad printed the real and the forged notes, eventually the Bank of Portugal bad to withdraw all the notes both good and bad.

If Bank of England notes are almost impossible to forge today, this was not always the case. A forger by the name of Old Patch gave the Bank officials no end of trouble in the early nays. Indeed, on December 5, 1780, the Bank of England bad to admit defeat, and issue an advertisement offering a re ward for the discovery of the forger of its notes. Despite this drastic effort on the part of the Bank, Old Patch continued for another five years. He was the illiterate son of a slop seller in Seven Dials, London, and had received no education at al). Nevertheless, lie discovered how to imitate Bank of England notes so that even the watermark passed the scrutiny of the experts of his day. It was only possible to detect his "Hash” notes by cheeking their numbers with similarly numbered notes. At the height of bis success this rascal succeeded in passing forged Bank of England notes at the rate of £l2OO a day. AVbeu be was subsequently caught it was discovered that the apparatus and materials be had used for the forgeries were ot lie simplest and crudest type. Rougni.' 150 vears later “Jim the Penman was arrested for forging Bank of England notes that passed lhe scrutiny ot all but scientific experts. His toos also consisted of three bottles of eolouicd inks, a drawing pen, and a maguitj tn e glass. „ ,

1 know no sin except the lack of love, I recognize the victory in deloat : No gulf divides life here from life 1 spell'perfection in the incomplete, —Frederick Knowles.