FORGED NOTES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19844, 19 May 1927, Page 2

FORGED NOTES

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY GEEMAN PRINTER'S ORDER. Dim glimpses into the slough of conspiracy anr srime which exists in the alien quarters of Berlin were afforded by a case decided in that city. Undoubtedly there was a plot against the power of Britain, and the only point in dispute is whether it was aimed at the rYe n; Ashant ee or merely at the integrity of tk‘ Bank of England. Unfortunately the Court for reasons of “danger to the safety of the State/’ heard in private the evidence on this interesting alternative without making it clear whether the peril they feared lay in the disclosure of details of a plan to expel Britain from the Gold Coast, or ift hints which the evidence might supply for an attack on the German lieischbauk. In the dock sat two Cameroon neg .... Makembe ami Munume, bearing . !’lying testimony to the benefits of t i»* education they had enjoyed at The t. .man mission school at Duala. They wore accused of forging and passing i i notes and of preparing to fabricate them on a much larger scale. The curious fact came out that it is possible, even if your face is as black as your hat, to order £5 notes from a j-/inter like visiting cards or circulars, it is true that the accused men seem to have been asked for some kiwi of < xpianation, but apparently the inquirers were satisfied by their use of •. e 1< i ter heading of an imaginary “Bank of England Club/’ their statejneats that the notes were to be used by King Bon.dngula of Accra” in an . r. uif.t to stake off the English yoke.” and their assurances that he would use .hem only “for the purpose of polittv.: propaganda.” The secrecy of the judicial proceedings prevented it from being known ; false “fivers” can be applied to > ?.-h an object except by being used l« r making payments. The first batch of eigthy false notes procured by the accused did not quite . v their requirements, and after they had put ten into circulation, they v. , a.r-s ed while trying to pass off the eleventh on a money changer. Curii enough they were released after some superficial inquiries, although 4-ne of them had already served a sentence of three years in Germany for fraudulently impersonating the “envoy of the Republic of Liberia.’ Apparently they might long have cortir.n* . their fraudulent career htd not an engineering fjrm on the Rhine reported to the British Consul the receipt of un order from some Berlin printers for “a printing roller for the manufacture of paper with the watermark of the Bank of England.” It must have been on British official information that the two black swindlers were tackled in earnest. During the small part of the hearing which was taken publicly, it became evident that the defence of the accused was largely an appeal to political prejudices. Quito apart from the specific case of “the King of Accra,” they represented themselves as exceedingly pro-German. One of them even appealed to the Bench to keep the case out of the papers, “because if the French hear I have taken the German side, they will massacre al! my fellow countrymen over there. ’ ’ The Bench did not seem to be much impressed by these appeals, but found an extenuating circumstance in the negro mentality and passed a sentence of three years on one of them and eighteen months on the other.