Chapter II: Part 2

On one occasion I was riding through a wood, with a single companion; we were on a journey, and quite unarmed. At a little open space in the woods we dismounted and knee-haltered our horses to let them feed, while we lazily stretched ourselves under a tree, and “took a pull” at our pocket-pistols, loaded with Cognac. A slight rustling sound was heard above our heads, and down came something to the ground in front of us. It was a fine, full-grown, handsome leopard, who coolly turned round and stared us in the face. I very much doubt whether two respectable young gentlemen ever felt in a greater fright than my friend and myself at that moment. The unwelcome visitor, however, merely wagged his tail, and having apparently satisfied his curiosity as to our personal appearance, trotted quietly off into the woods. Without uttering a word we each drew a long breath, took another pull at the _eau-de-vie_, caught our horses, and put as many miles as we could in a few minutes between ourselves and that same wood.

The lion can even be companionable. Major Nicholson occupies a farm near the north-east boundary of the Colony. He is a great sportsman, and goes out alone to look after a lion with as much unconcern as a Regent Street lounger seeks out a Skye-terrier as a present for his lady-love. In one of his afternoon rambles the Major fell in with a lion; they were both going the same way and jogged along for some distance silent, though excellent friends. At length the lion stopped, turned round, faced the Major, and sat on his haunches like a great tom-cat. The Major, not knowing how soon his majesty’s tacit treaty of peace might be broken with him, levelled his piece, taking aim between the eyes. He was just about to fire, when a sound caused him to turn round; he then at once understood that, the lion having been out for a walk, his lady had come, like a dutiful wife, to meet him. The Major drew back and calculated the odds--two to one in favour of the quadrupeds--and reserved his fire; deciding that it would be little satisfaction to kill the husband and be eaten by the wife, or _vice versâ_. The respectable couple then continued their walk alone, treating the Major with the most sovereign contempt, and allowing him, like Young Norval, to “mark the course they took,” and to follow them to their abode. This he next day visited, with men, dogs, and guns; and a week afterwards I was sleeping soundly, in the Major’s house, on the skin of that same king of the forest, while his consort’s hide served me for a coverlid.

Although the keener sportsman prefers to go beyond the colonial boundary for prey, yet it is customary in the towns for a number of friends to make up a shooting party, who sally forth with waggons and a tent, which they pitch on some agreeable spot, and stay for several days, living _al fresco_,--enjoying good sport by day and good fare at the end of it, with merry songs, toasts, and stories. Others prefer hunting, mount their active little horses, and, followed by a whole host of curs, whose pedigrees would puzzle the most ingenious zoologist, sally forth in search of wild bucks; and many a good run they enjoy, and much do they contribute to the stock of good things which grace the table on the greensward at night.

“BATTLE WITH LIFE!”

Bear thee up bravely,
Strong heart and true!
Meet thy woes gravely,
Strive with them too!
Let them not win from thee
Tear of regret,
Such were a sin from thee,
Hope for good yet!

Rouse thee from drooping,
Care-laden soul;
Mournfully stooping
’Neath grief’s control!
Far o’er the gloom that lies,
Shrouding the earth,
Light from eternal skies
Shows us thy worth.

Nerve thee yet stronger,
Resolute mind!
Let care no longer
Heavily bind.
Rise on thy eagle wings
Gloriously free!
Till from material things
Pure thou shalt be!

Bear ye up bravely,
Soul and mind too!
Droop not so gravely,
Bold heart and true!
Clear rays of streaming light
Shine through the gloom,
God’s love is beaming bright
E’en round the tomb!

SPY POLICE.

We have already given some insight into the workings of the Detective Police system of London, and have found that it is solely employed in bringing crime to justice. We have no political police, no police over opinion. The most rabid demagogue can _say_ in this free country what he chooses, provided it does not tend to incite others to _do_ what is annoying to the lieges. He speaks not under the terror of an organised spy system. He dreads not to discuss the affairs of the nation at a tavern, lest the waiter should be a policeman in disguise; he can converse familiarly with his guests at his own table without suspecting that the interior of his own liveries consists of a spy; when travelling, he has not the slightest fear of perpetual imprisonment for declaring himself freely on the conduct of the powers that be, because he knows that even if his fellow-passenger be a Sergeant Myth or an Inspector Wield, no harm will come to him.

It is not so across the Channel. There, while the criminal police is very defective, the police of politics is all powerful. In March last, thirty thousand political malcontents were swept beyond the gates of Paris in a single morning, before the rest of the people were up; and nobody was any the wiser till the masterly feat had been performed; but during the same month several single individuals were knocked down and robbed--some in broad day, others at dusk--yet neither of the robbers were taken. In Austria, in some of the German states, and in Italy, political _espionage_ is carried to a point of refined ingenuity of which no Englishman can form an idea. Mr. Tomkins goes, for instance, to Naples; and--as the Emperor of Russia might have enlarged on the happiness and prosperity of that city after his recent visit to it, because the streets were cleared of beggars, the cabmen compelled to dress in their best, and the fishermen to wear shoes--so in the “Travels in Italy,” which Mr. Tomkins would undoubtedly publish, there would be not a word about the police spy system; because he, innocent man, was unable to detect in his table companions, in his courier, or in his laundress, an agent of police. It is now our purpose to supply from the authentic information of a resident in Naples, the hiatus to be found in all the books of all the Mr. Tomkinses who have written “Travels.”

The chief agent is the Commissary, who, says our friend, has a certain district put under his care, and is thus made responsible for its order and fidelity; he is a kind of nursing father, in short, to the unhappy inhabitants, with power to ruin or destroy; for though he nominally receives his orders from the Minister of Police, yet, as the cant phrase is, his office is eminently “suggestive;” and whether a suspicion is to be cleared up, an act of vengeance to be perpetrated, or some object of interest or licentiousness to be attained, the report of the Commissary supplies all the data for the operations at head-quarters.

Immediately under his orders this General of Division has both regular and irregular troops, the former being the Policemen of the City; the latter simply Spies. When any long course of inquiry is to be carried out, he employs deputies, who bring in their intelligence from time to time; but if any immediate or important information is desired, the Commissary undertakes that little bit of business himself--it is a delicate _morçeau_ which this gourmand cannot resist, and away he posts to enjoy the banquet.

Some years ago, there resided in the neighbourhood of Naples a foreigner, whose health compelled him to seek a southern climate. His tastes and occupations were literary, and his habits quiet; but whether he had some secret enemy who had denounced him, or whether the Government were afraid of him, because he read and wrote, I know not; but one fine morning the little town was much agitated by the appearance of a Commissary of Police and his attendant “Sbirri.” Many were the conjectures--as is always the case under such circumstances--as to what could be the object of this visitation. No one took it to himself; but as in a church each good Christian lolls in his corner and admires the applicability of the sermon to his neighbour in the next pew; so every little townsman knew precisely the person who merited the inspection of the Police. Don Roberto was sure that the visit was meant for his mortal enemy, Don Giuseppe; whereas the master of the favourite “Cantino” was equally sure that it must be for his rival who sold such acid wine, and permitted scenes in his shop enough to awaken the anger of the Saints. He always thought he was a Carbonaro!

The Commissary, on his arrival, sent for the Syndic.

“Pray, Signor Syndic,” he said, “is there a foreigner residing here, called Don Ferdinand?” (every one is Don, in Naples.)

“Yes!” was the reply.

“And pray, Sir, what is the object of his residence here?”

“I understand, Signor Commissario, that he is in search of health and amusement.”

“Ah! very good: health and amusement. And what may be his occupations?”

“They do say, Sir, that he is engaged much in reading and writing.”

“Reading and writing! Yet in search of health and amusement,” said the official, opening his eyes. “That’s a curious combination; but tell me, has Don Ferdinand any intercourse with the inhabitants? does he ever invite any of them to dinner?”

“I must confess,” said the Syndic, “that he does.”

“Then it is true, that Don Ferdinand proposes toasts after dinner?”

“Well,” replied the Syndic, as if such an admission would be fraught with danger. “I cannot deny it--he _does_ propose toasts.”

“What are they?” asked the great official, sharply.

“His usual practice is, first, to propose the health of our Sovereign Lord the King, and then the health of _his_ Sovereign Lady, the Queen.”

Not without disappointment at having made out nothing serious against Don Ferdinand, our Commissary dismissed the Syndic, merely observing that he had taken note of all his answers, and should draw up his report therefrom, and present it to the Minister of Police.

After that, the Commissary of the Police came twice to my friend’s residence, and put a number of searching questions to his porter. Nothing, however, came of these investigations; first, because there was nothing really alarming in the fact of a man reading and writing, and giving toasts; and, secondly, and perhaps more strongly, because Don Ferdinand was an Englishman; for there is a prestige attaching to the very name of an Englishman which attracts to him the respect of the people and a cautious deferential treatment on the part of the Governments. It is felt, that, however distant he may be from his native land, he is not beyond its protective power, and that any injustice done to him will be resented as an injustice done to the nation. It is this conviction which has been his security in circumstances where I have known the subjects of other States arrested, imprisoned, or sent out of the country, without receiving the protection of their Governments.

The Commissary is eminently a night-bird; sometimes you see him with “measured step and slow,” followed by his Myrmidons, stealing along under the dark shadows of the houses, like a cat treading; or, perchance, you are returning home through the silent streets, carelessly and thoughtlessly, when, at some dark corner, you find yourself confronted by this spectre. He listens for and pauses at every foot-fall, waits about in entries, stops at doors, watches the lights in houses, and, like a true inductive philosopher, from such simple facts--as seeing two or three lights, more or less, or a larger group of heads than usual, infers conspiracies most dreadful and dangerous to the State. Presently a Commissary is seen bustling along with his attendants, with a quick and eager step. He is not on a mission of inspection--oh, no--that cheerful promptitude indicates that game’s a-foot, and that something is to be done. And now he stops before a house and knocks aloud--“Who is there?”--demands some one from within. “Open in the name of the law!” is the reply. What consternation do these words create; lights are gleaming and people are hurrying backwards and forwards, but the knocking continues and becomes louder, and the door is opened, and the unfortunate master of the house is dragged from his bed to be plunged into the dungeons of the Vicaria. His neighbour, luckier than he, had timely notice of the honour intended him by the Commissary; and, escaping over the roof of his house, was enabled to get on board some friendly vessel. Their crime you ask? That of hundreds of others who are eating the bread of penury in exile, or pining in loathsome dungeons--they had taken part in the movements which preceded the publication of the “Constitution” (yet an article of that “Constitution” says, that “a veil of oblivion shall rest upon the past”). They had, in short, assisted in the development of a Constitution which I saw the Majesty of Naples swear on the Gospels to observe.

I know no better type than certain noxious insects for the myrmidons of the Commissary--the Police Spies of the South of Italy. Their multitude, their ubiquity, their unwearied perseverance, their sharp sting, make them worse than the whole insect tribe united, and infinitely more dangerous. You may crush the wasp, or smoke the mosquito, or brush away the ant, and get some intervals of repose in spite of renewed attacks; they give you, too, some warning signs of their approach--but the Police Spy is invisible and never out of hearing; whether you are relaxing in frank and thoughtless merriment, or abandoning yourself to the sweet and delicious dreams of friendship; in the market or the street--the drawing-room--the café--or the church--there he is: “A chiel’s amang ye taking notes, and ’faith he’ll prent it!” They reconnoitre the ground in various detachments for the Commissary, and report the movements, words, and almost thoughts, of the “suspected,” or of whomsoever they please to place upon that fatal list. They assume no distinctive dress--make no sign; they walk in darkness, and move like the pestilence, yet they are as real existences, and follow as precise a trade, as the vendor of maccaroni. These spies are not sent forth at random, like gleaners in a wheat-field, to pick up whatever they can; but they are selected with caution, and assigned a position for which their talents or rank best fit them. Thus it happens that every grade of society has its appropriate and peculiar spies. Some are appointed to watch over the upper classes; some over the _canaglia_; some over the clergy; all watch each other. Enter a drawing-room, and rustling in satin, and distributing the courtesies and refinements of the _galleria_ (drawing-room), you may behold a Government Spy. Beauty and refinement unite to lament the fate of the poor Marchese Maroni, who was arrested yesterday; nay, two crystal drops confirm the grief of the sympathising syren--“It was so hard a case. There was really nothing that could be proved against his Eccellenza. Alas! who is safe under the existing order of things--is there no hope--will there never be any change?” But beware--fall not into the meshes, though they may be woven of silk; be silent or indifferent; the very lips which pronounced these commiserations, are those which a few hours ago denounced the subject of them to the Government. You adjourn, at the close of the Opera, to a café; you are accompanied by several friends, and feel disposed to relax over a glass of iced punch--’tis so hot--and then from one topic of conversation you range to another, as if you were breathing the air of liberty. But who is that sleek old gentleman opposite, whose keen and cunning eye glances occasionally at you from above his paper? He has been seated there, I know not how long, spelling rather than reading yesterday’s paper; yet he has a benevolent expression of countenance; perhaps he is infirm, poor fellow, or is looking for an advertisement; perhaps some article has deeply interested him. Phaugh! waste not your compassion or your speculation upon him--he is a Spy! he has been taking notes, and woe be to you if you have been betrayed into any thoughtless expression of opinion; for every word is registered. What corner of the city, or the country, what class of society is free from this pest! Nor is all this merely imaginary. I paint from the life, and could adduce instances of betrayal in the belle of high society, or in the shopman at the counter, in the caburan who takes your paltry _buonamancia_, or the friend you have cherished in your bosom.

For even private friendship is not held sacred. There was living in Naples, upwards of a year since, a Count Montinona, who appeared to have no particular object in view except the pursuit of pleasure. For many years he had lavished his bounty and his friendship on another, who was at length discovered to have made somewhat free with the Count’s property; accusations ensued, and, though compassion and a certain lingering recollection of the past did not permit the Count to cast the villain entirely off; yet he so far restricted his intimacy as to put it out of his power to rob him--“he was poor, and the temptation had been too great!” But what ensued?--This man denounced his friend as having concealed arms, and as entertaining free and dangerous opinions. Straightway the Count was arrested--his house and papers were examined, though nothing could be found to implicate him or to prove the charge; yet for many, many months he pined away in prison. I never heard when he was released, or if he is yet at liberty. All that time the informer ranged about at his own sweet will, to entrap as many new jail victims as he could make.

The effect of the Spy System on the national character is exceedingly demoralising. There is no country in Europe where the low, secret vices, as opposed to those of a bolder, opener, and more ferocious character, exist so strongly as in the South of Italy. There, the result of that timidity and want of faith in what is good, and just, and true, which has been engendered by intrigue, is practised in its most comprehensive sense. The Secret Police system is one of the very many causes of this. To appreciate this thoroughly, you must regard it as being not merely a political institution, but as having now become national; people have followed the example which has been set them, and have all become spies--spies on each other’s actions, words, and thoughts. Sometimes this habit is pursued to the extent only of simple curiosity, watching, investigating, and reporting the commonest trifles. Sometimes it is a little more malignant, and engages, almost as a pastime, in embroiling individuals or families. Sometimes it pushes further, and furnishes denunciations to the Priest, the Bishop, the Intendente, or the Minister. I have seen it under all its phases, and the effect has been to produce a want of faith in all that is high, generous and noble, and to form a low national character.

It is more ridiculous and annoying than can well be imagined, to get behind the scenes of Italian life, and listen to the daily gossip:--How such an one “_ha fatto un’ ricorso_” against this or that person. How Don So and So has written certain letters to the Intendente, containing charges against another Don, and has forged two signatures. How So and So has been to the bishop and laid a long list of crimes at the door of some luckless priest. Then watch the tempest of official papers which fly through the air; some contain inquiries into the truth of the statements, addressed to the judge or the syndic; some are orders to a dozen unfortunate wights to present themselves at the Intendenza; while others contain ghostly reproofs from the bishop, or orders to suspend a priest at his reverence’s will and pleasure, and rusticate him in some monastery. Every denunciation is received and inquired into.

I remember an instance of two men who kept a whole district in inquietude during one winter. Both had received some private offence, and straightway each shrank into a corner and wove his envenomed meshes; charges were devised and letters written to the Intendente, accusing some score of their friends of Carbonarism or constitutionalism; then came the usual dispatches to the judge and other authorities to inquire into the truth of the statements. The judge, it happened, was friendly with the unfortunate denounced, and drew up therefore a favourable report, but had he been less honest or less amicable, these poor fellows might have swelled the number of those who now pine in the prisons of the Vicaria.

Indeed, the influence of the Police Spy System (united with other causes), has been such as to convert the whole nation into spies upon each other. As suspicion and want of confidence universally prevail, so there is a deficiency of truthfulness. This cannot be more strongly proved than by the admission of the Italians themselves who, when wishing to conciliate your belief, tell you that they speak “_la parola Inglese_,”--on the word of an Englishman.

CHIPS.

THE INDIVIDUALITY OF LOCOMOTIVES.

It is a remarkable truth, and, well applied, it might be profitable to us, in helping us to make fair allowance for the differences between the temperaments of different men--that every Locomotive Engine running on a Railway, has a distinct individuality and character of its own.

It is perfectly well known to experienced practical engineers, that if a dozen different Locomotive Engines were made, at the same time, of the same power, for the same purpose, of like materials, in the same Factory--each of those Locomotive Engines would come out with its own peculiar whims and ways, only ascertainable by experience. One engine will take a great meal of coke and water at once; another will not hear of such a thing, but will insist on being coaxed by spades-full and buckets-full. One is disposed to start off, when required, at the top of his speed; another must have a little time to warm at his work, and to get well into it. These peculiarities are so accurately mastered by skilful drivers, that only particular men can persuade particular engines to do their best. It would seem as if some of these “excellent monsters” declared, on being brought out of the stable, “If it’s Smith who is to drive me, I won’t go. If it’s my friend Stokes, I am agreeable to anything!”

All Locomotive Engines are low-spirited in damp and foggy weather. They have a great satisfaction in their work when the air is crisp and frosty. At such a time they are very cheerful and brisk; but they strongly object to haze and Scotch mists. These are points of character on which they are all united. It is in their peculiarities and varieties of character that they are most remarkable.

The Railway Company who should consign all their Locomotives to one uniform standard of treatment, without any allowance for varying shades of character and opinion, would soon fall as much behind-hand in the world as those greater Governments are, and ever will be, who pursue the same course with the finer piece of work called Man.

THE OLDEST INHABITANT OF THE PLACE DE GRÈVE.

The Police Courts of London have often displayed many a curious character, many a strange scene, many an exquisite bit of dialogue; so have the Police Courts in Ireland, especially at the Petty Sessions in Kilrush; but we are not so well aware of how often a scene of rich and peculiar humour occurs in the Police _tribuneaux_ of Paris. We will proceed to give the reader a “taste of their quality.”

An extremely old woman, all in rags, was continually found begging in the streets, and the Police having goodnaturedly let her off several times, were at last obliged to take her in charge, and bring her into the Court. Several magistrates were sitting. The following dialogue took place between the President and the old woman.

_President._ Now, my good woman, what have you to say for yourself? You have been frequently warned by the Police, but you have persisted in troubling people with begging.

_Old Woman_ (_in a humble quavering tone_). Ah, Monsieur le President, it is not so much trouble to other people as it is to me. I am a very old woman.

_Pres._ Come, come, you must leave off begging, or I shall be obliged to punish you.

_Old W._ But, Monsieur le President, I cannot live without--I must beg--pardon me, Monsieur--I am obliged to beg.

_Pres._ But I say you must not. Can you do no work?

_Old W._ Ah, no, Monsieur; I am too old.

_Pres._ Can’t you sell something--little cakes--bonbons?--

_Old W._ No, Monsieur, I can’t get any little stock to begin with; and, if I could, I should be robbed by the _gamins_, or the little girls, for I’m not very quick, and can’t see well.

_Pres._ Your relations must support you, then. You cannot be allowed to beg. Have you no son--no daughter--no grandchildren?

_Old W._ No, Monsieur; none--none--all my relations are dead.

_Pres._ Well then, your friends must give you assistance.

_Old W._ Ah, Monsieur, I have no friends; and, indeed, I never had but one, in my life; but he too is gone.

_Pres._ And who was he?

_Old W._ Monsieur de Robespierre--_le pauvre cher homme!_ (The poor, dear man!)

_Pres._ Robespierre!--why what did you know of him?

_Old W._ Oh, Monsieur, my mother was one of the _tricoteurs_ (knitting-women) who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine, and I always stood beside her. When Monsieur de Robespierre was passing by, in attending his duties, he used to touch my cheek, and call me (here the old woman shed tears) _la belle Marguerite_:--_le pauvre, cher homme!_

We must here pause to remind the reader that these women, the _tricoteurs_, who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine on the mornings when it was at its hideous work, were sometimes called the “Furies;” but only as a grim jest. It is well known, that, although there were occasionally some sanguinary hags amongst them, yet, for the most part, they were merely idle, gossiping women, who came there dressed in neat white caps, and with their knitting materials, out of sheer love of excitement, and to enjoy the _spectacle_.

_Pres._ Well, Goody; finish your history.

_Old W._ I was married soon after this, and then I used to take my seat as a _tricoteur_ among the others; and on the days when Monsieur de Robespierre passed, he used always to notice me--_le pauvre cher homme_. I used then to be called _la belle tricoteuse_, but now--now, I am called _la vielle radoteuse_ (the old dotardess). Ah, Monsieur le President, it is what we must all come to!

The old woman accompanied this reflection with an inimitable look at the President, which completely involved him in the _we_, thus presenting him with the prospect of becoming an old dotardess; not in the least meant offensively, but said in the innocence of her aged heart.

_Pres._ Ahem!--silence! You seem to have a very tender recollection of Monsieur Robespierre. I suppose you had reason to be grateful to him?

_Old W._ No, Monsieur, no reason in particular; for he guillotined my husband.

_Pres._ Certainly this ought to be no reason for loving his memory.

_Old W._ Ah, Monsieur, but it happened quite by accident. Monsieur de Robespierre did not intend to guillotine my husband--he had him executed by mistake for somebody else--_le pauvre cher homme!_

Thus leaving it an exquisite matter of doubt, as to whether the “poor dear man” referred to her husband, or to Monsieur de Robespierre; or whether the tender epithet was equally divided between them.

TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.

CHAPTER II.

In the history of crime, as in all other histories, there is one great epoch by which minor dates are arranged and defined. In a list of remarkable events, one remarkable event more remarkable than the last, is the standard around which all smaller circumstances are grouped. Whatever happens in Mohammedan annals, is set down as having occurred so many years after the flight of the Prophet; in the records of London commerce a great fraud or a great failure is mentioned as having come to light so many months after the flight of Rowland Stephenson. Sporting men date from remarkable struggles for the Derby prize; and refer to 1840 as “Bloomsbury’s year.” The highwayman of old dated from Dick Turpin’s last appearance on the fatal stage at Tyburn turnpike. In like manner, the standard epoch in the annals of Bank Note Forgery, is the year 1797, when (on the 25th of February) one pound notes were put into circulation instead of golden guineas; or, to use the City idiom, “cash payments were suspended.”

At that time the Bank of England note was no better in appearance--had not improved as a work of art--since the days of Vaughan, Mathieson, and Old Patch; it was just as easily imitated, and the chances of the successful circulation of counterfeits were increased a thousand-fold.

Up to 1793 no notes had been issued even for sums so small as five pounds. Consequently all the Bank paper then in use, passed through the hands and under the eyes of the affluent and educated, who could more readily distinguish the false from the true. Hence, during the fourteen years which preceded the non-golden and small-note era, there were only three capital convictions for the crime. When, however, the Bank of England notes became “common and popular,” a prodigious quantity--to complete the quotation--was also made “base,” and many persons were hanged for concocting them.

To a vast number of the humbler orders, Bank Notes were a rarity and a “sight.” Many had never seen such a thing before they were called upon to take one or two pound notes in exchange for small merchandise, or their own labour. How were they to judge? How were they to tell a good from a spurious note?--especially when it happened that the officers of the Bank themselves, were occasionally mistaken, so complete and perfect were the imitations then afloat. There cannot be much doubt that where one graphic rascal was found out, ten escaped. They snapped their fingers at the executioner, and went on enjoying their beefsteaks and porter; their winter treats to the play; their summer excursions to the suburban tea-gardens; their fashionable lounges at Tunbridge Wells, Bath, Margate, and Ramsgate; doing business with wonderful unconcern and “face” all along their journeys. These usually expensive, but to them profitable enjoyments, were continually coming to light at the trials of the lesser rogues who undertook the issue department; for, from the ease with which close imitation was effected, the manufacture was more readily completed than the uttering. The fraternity and sisterhood of utterers played many parts, and were banded in strict compact with the forgers. Some were turned loose into fairs and markets, in all sorts of appropriate disguises. Farmers, who could hardly distinguish a field of standing wheat from a field of barley: Butchers who never wielded more deadly weapons than two-prong forks: Country boys with Cockney accents, bought gingerbread, and treated their so-called sweethearts with ribbons and muslins, all by the interchange of false “flimseys.” The better mannered disguised themselves as ladies and gentlemen, paid their losings at cards or hazard, or their tavern bills, their milliners, and coachmakers, in motley money composed of part real and part base bank paper. Some went about in the cloak of the Samaritan, and generously subscribed to charities wherever they saw a chance of changing a bad “five” for three or four good “ones.” Ladies of sweet disposition went about doing good among the poor; personally inquired into distress, relieved it by sending out a daughter or a son to a neighbouring shop for change; and left five shillings for present necessities, walking off with fifteen. So openly--in spite of the gallows--was forgery carried on, that whoever chose to turn utterer found no difficulty in getting a stock-in-trade to commence with. Indeed, in the days of highwaymen, no travelling gentleman’s pocket or valise was considered properly furnished without a few forged notes wherewith to satisfy the demands of the members of the “High Toby.” This offence against the laws of the road, however, soon became too common, and wayfarers who were stopped and rifled had to pledge their sacred words of honour that their notes were the genuine promises of Abraham Newland; and that their watches were not of the factory of Mr. Pinchbeck.

With temptations so strong, it is no wonder that the forgers’ trade flourished, with only an occasional check from the strong arm of the law. It followed, therefore, that from the issue of small notes in February 1797, to the end of 1817--twenty years--there were no fewer than eight hundred and seventy prosecutions connected with Bank Note Forgery, in which there were only one hundred and sixty acquittals, and upwards of three hundred executions! 1818 was the culminating point of the crime. In the first three months there were no fewer than one hundred and twenty-eight prosecutions by the Bank; and by the end of that year, two-and-thirty individuals had been hanged for Note Forgery. So far from this appalling series of examples having any effect in checking the progress of the crime, it is proved that at, and after that very time, base notes were poured into the Bank at the rate of _a hundred a day_!

The enormous number of undetected forgeries afloat, may be estimated by the fact, that from the 1st of January 1812, to the 10th April 1818, one hundred and thirty-one thousand three hundred and thirty-one pieces of paper were ornamented by the Bank officers with the word “Forged”--upwards of one hundred and seven thousand of them were one-pound counterfeits.

Intrinsically, it would appear from an Hibernian view of the case, then, that bad notes were nearly as good, (except not merely having been manufactured at the Bank), as good ones. So thoroughly and completely did some of them resemble the authorised engraving of the Bank, that it was next to impossible to distinguish the false from the true. Countless instances, showing rather the skill of the forger than the want of vigilance in Bank officials, could be brought forward. Respectable persons were constantly taken into custody on a charge of uttering forgeries, imprisoned for days and then liberated. A close scrutiny, proving that the accusations were made upon genuine paper. In September, 1818, Mr. A. Burnett, of Portsmouth, had the satisfaction of having a note which had passed through his hands returned to him from the Bank of England with the base mark upon it. Satisfied of its genuineness, he re-inclosed it to the cashier, and demanded its payment. By return of post he received the following letter:

“_Bank of England, 16 Sept., 1818._

“Sir,--I have to acknowledge your letter to Mr. Hase, of the 13th inst. inclosing a one pound note, and, in answer thereto, I beg leave to acquaint you, that, on inspection it appears to be a genuine Note of the Bank of England; I therefore, agreeably to your request, inclose you one of the like value, No. 26,276, dated 22nd August, 1818.

“I am exceedingly sorry, Sir, that such an unusual oversight should have occurred to give you so much trouble, which I trust your candour will induce you to excuse when I assure you that the unfortunate mistake has arisen entirely out of the hurry and multiplicity of business.

“I am, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
A. BURNETT, ESQ. J. RIPPON.
7 Belle Vue Terrace.
Southsea, near Portsmouth.”

A more extraordinary case is on record. A note was traced to the possession of a tradesman, which had been pronounced by the Bank Inspectors to have been forged. The man would not give it up and was taken before a magistrate, charged with “having a note in his possession, well knowing it to be forged.” He was committed to prison on evidence of the Bank Inspector; but was afterwards released on bail to appear when called on. He was _not_ called on; and, at the expiration of twelvemonths (having kept the note all that time), he brought an action against the Bank for false imprisonment. On the trial the note was proved to be genuine! and the plaintiff was awarded damages of one hundred pounds.

It is a fact sufficiently dreadful that three hundred and thirty human lives should have been sacrificed in twenty-one years; but when we relate a circumstance which admits the merest probability that some--even one--of those lives may have been sacrificed in innocence of the offence for which they suffered, the consideration becomes appalling.

Some time after the frequency of the crime had, in other respects subsided, there was a sort of bloody assize at Haverfordwest, in Wales; several prisoners were tried for forging and uttering, and thirteen were convicted; chiefly on the evidence of Mr. Christmas, a Bank Inspector, who swore positively, in one case, that the document named in the indictment “was not an impression from a Bank of England plate; was not printed on the paper with the ink or water-mark of the Bank; neither was it in the handwriting of the signing clerk.” Upon this testimony the prisoner, together with twelve participators in similar crimes, were condemned to be hanged!

The morning after the trial, Mr. Christmas was leaving his lodging, when an acquaintance stepped up and asked him, as a friend, to give his opinion on a note he had that morning received. It was a bright day; Mr. Christmas put on his spectacles, and carefully scrutinised the document in a business-like and leisurely manner. He pronounced it to be forged. The gentleman, a little chagrined, brought it away with him to town. It is not a little singular that he happened to know Mr. Burnett, of Portsmouth, whom he accidentally met, and to whom he showed the note. Mr. Burnett was evidently a capital judge of Bank paper. He said nothing, but slipping his hand into one pocket, handed to the astonished gentleman full change, and put the note into another. “It cannot be a good note,” exclaimed the latter, “for my friend Christmas told me at Haverfordwest that it is a forgery!” But as Mr. Burnett had backed his opinion to the amount of twenty shillings he declined to retract it; and lost no time in writing to Mr. Henry Hase (Abraham Newland’s successor) to test its accuracy.

It was lucky that he did so; for this little circumstance saved thirteen lives!

Mr. Christmas’s co-inspectors at the Bank of England actually reversed his non-official judgment that the note was a forgery. It was officially pronounced to be a good note; yet upon the evidence of Mr. Christmas as regards other notes, the thirteen human beings at Haverfordwest were trembling at the foot of the gallows. It was promptly and cogently argued that as Mr. Christmas’s judgment had failed him in the deliberate examination of one note, it might also err as to others, and the convicts were respited.

The converse of this sort of mistake often happened. Bad notes were pronounced to be genuine by the Bank. Early in January, 1818, a well-dressed woman entered the shop of Mr. James Hammond, of 40, Bishopsgate Street Without, and having purchased three pounds worth of goods, tendered in payment a ten-pound note. There was something hesitating and odd in her manner; and, although Mr. Hammond could see nothing the matter with the note, yet he was ungallant enough to suspect--from the uncomfortable demeanour of his customer--that all was not right. He hoped she was not in a hurry, for he had no change; he must send to a neighbour for it. He immediately dispatched his shopman to the most affluent of all his neighbours--to her of Threadneedle Street. The delay occasioned the lady to remark, “I suppose he is gone to the Bank?” Mr. Hammond having answered in the affirmative, engaged his customer in conversation, and they freely discussed the current topics of the day; till the young man returned with ten one pound Bank of England Notes. Mr. Hammond felt a little remorse at having suspected his patroness; who departed with the purchases with the utmost despatch. She had not been gone half an hour before two gentlemen rushed into the shop in a state of grievous chagrin; one was the Bank clerk who had changed the note. He begged Mr. Hammond would be good enough to give him another for it. “Why?” asked the puzzled shopkeeper. “Why, Sir,” replied the distressed clerk, “it is forged!” Of course his request was not complied with. The clerk declared that his dismissal was highly probable; but Mr. Hammond was inexorable.

The arguments in favour of death punishments never fail so signally as when brought to the test of the scaffold and its effect on Bank Forgeries. When these were most numerous, although from twenty to thirty persons were put to death in one year, the gallows was never deprived of an equal share of prey during the next. As long as simulated notes could be passed with ease, and detected with difficulty, the Old Bailey had no terrors for clever engravers and dexterous imitators of the hieroglyphic autographs of the Bank of England signers.

At length public alarm at the prevalence of forgeries, and the difficulty of knowing them as such, arose to the height of demanding some sort of relief. In 1819 a committee was appointed by the Government to enquire into the best means of prevention. One hundred and eighty projects were submitted. They mostly consisted of intricate designs such as rendered great expense necessary to imitate. But none were adopted, for the obvious reason that ever so indifferent and easily executed imitation of an elaborate note is quite sufficient to deceive an uneducated eye; as had been abundantly proved in the instance of the Irish “black note.” The Bank had not been indifferent or idle on the subject, for it had spent some hundred thousand pounds in projects for inimitable notes. At last--not long before the Commission was appointed--they were on the eve of adopting an ingenious and costly mechanism for printing a note so precisely alike on both sides as to appear as one impression, when one of the Bank printers imitated it exactly by the simple contrivance of two plates and a hinge. This may serve as a sample of the other one hundred and seventy-nine projects.

Neither the gallows, nor expensive and elaborate works of art, having been found effectual in preventing forgery, the true expedient for at least lessening the crime was adopted in 1821:--the issue of small notes was wholly discontinued, and sovereigns were brought into circulation. The forger’s trade was nearly annihilated. Criminal returns inform us that during the nine years after the resumption of gold currency the number of convictions for offences having reference to the Bank of England notes were less than one hundred, and the executions only eight. This clinches the argument against the efficacy of the gallows. In 1830 death punishments were repealed for all minor offences, and, although the cases of Bank Note Forgeries slightly increased for a time, yet there is no reason to suppose that they are greater now than they were between 1821 and 1830.

At present, Bank paper forgeries are not numerous. One of the latest was that of the twenty pound note, of which about sixty specimens found their way into the Bank. It was well executed in Belgium by foreigners, and the impressions were passed among the Change-agents in various towns in France and the Netherlands. The speculation did not succeed; for the notes got into, and were detected at, the Bank, a little too soon to profit the schemers much.

The most considerable frauds now perpetrated are not forgeries; but are done upon the plan of the highwayman mentioned in our first chapter. In order to give currency to stolen or lost notes which have been stopped at the Bank (lists of which are supplied to every banker in the country), the numbers and dates are fraudulently altered. Some years since, a gentleman, who had been receiving a large sum of money at the Bank, was robbed of it in an omnibus. The notes gradually came in, but all were altered. The last was one for five hundred pounds, dated the 12th March, 1846, and numbered 32109. On the Monday (3rd June) after the last “Derby Day,” amid the _twenty-five thousand pieces_ of paper that were examined by the Bank Inspectors, there was one note for five hundred pounds, dated 12th March, 1848, and numbered 32409. At that note an inspector suddenly arrested his rapid examination of the pile of which it was one. He scrutinised it for a minute, and pronounced it “altered.” On the next day, that same note, with a perfect one for five hundred pounds, is shown to us with an intimation of the fact. We look at every letter; we trace every line; follow every flourish: we hold both up to the light; we undulate our visuals with the waves of the water-mark. We confess that we cannot pronounce decisively; but we have an opinion derived from a slight “goutiness” in the fine stroke of the figure 4 that No. 32409 is the forgery! so indeed it was. Yet the Bank Inspector had picked it out from the hundred genuine notes as instantaneously--pounced upon it as rapidly, as if it had been printed with green ink upon card-board.

This then, O gentlemen forgers and sporting note alterers, is the kind of odds which is against you. A minute investigation of the note assured us of your exceeding skill and ingenuity; but it also convinced us of the superiority of the detective ordeal which you have to blind and to pass. In this instance you had followed the highwayman’s plan, and had put with great cunning, the additional marks to the 1 in 32109 to make it into a 4. To hide the scraping out of the top or serif of the figure 1--to make the angle from which to draw the fine line of the 4--you had artfully inserted with a pen the figures “£16 16” as if that sum had been received from a person bearing a name that you had written above. You had with extraordinary neatness cut out the “6” from 1846, and filled up the hole with an 8 abstracted from some note of lesser value. You had fitted it with remarkable precision; only you had not got the 8 quite upright enough to pass the shrewd glance of the Bank Inspector.

We have seen a one-pound note made up of refuse pieces of a hundred other Bank notes, and pasted on a piece of paper (like a note that had been accidentally torn), so as to present an entire and _passable_ whole.

To alter with a pen a 1 into a 4 is an easy task--to cut out the numeral from the _date_ in one note and insert it into another, needs only a tyro in paper-cutting; but to change the special _number_ by which each note is distinguished, is a feat only second in impossibility to trumping every court-card of every suit six times running in a rubber of whist. Yet we have seen a note so cleverly altered by this expedient, that it was actually paid by the Bank cashiers. If the reader will take a Bank note out of his purse, and examine its “number,” he will at once appreciate the combination of chances required to find, on any other note, any other figure that shall displace any one of the numerals so as to avoid detection. The “number” of every Bank note is printed twice on one line--first, on the words “I promise,” secondly, on the words, “or bearer.” Sometimes the figures cover the whole of those words; sometimes they only partly obscure them. No. 99066 now lies before us. Suppose we wished to substitute the “0” of another note for the first “9” of the one now under our eye; we see that the “9” covers a little bit of the “P,” and intersects in three places the “r,” in “Promise.” Now, to give this alteration the smallest chance, we must look through hundreds of other notes till we find an “0” which not only covers a part of the “P” and intersects the “r” in three places, but in precisely _the same_ places as the “9” on our note does; else the strokes of those letters would not meet when the “0” was let in, and instant detection would ensue. But even then the job would only be half done. The second initial “9” stands upon the “or” in “or bearer,” and we should have to investigate several hundred more notes, to find an “0” that intersected that little word exactly in the same manner, and then let it in with such mathematical nicety, that not the hundredth part of a hair’s breadth of the transferred paper should fail to range with the rest of the letters and figures on the altered note; to say nothing of hiding the joins in the paper. This is the triumph of ambidexterity; it is a species of patch-work far beyond the most sublime achievements of “Old Patch” himself.

Time has proved that the steady perseverance of the Bank--despite the most furious clamour--in gradually improving their original note and thus preserving those most essential qualities, simplicity and uniformity--has been a better preventive to forgery than any one of the hundreds of plans, pictures, complications, chemicals, and colours, which have been forced upon the Directors’ notice. Whole-note forgery is nearly extinct. The lives of Eminent Forgers need only wait for a single addendum; for only one man is left who can claim superiority over Mathieson, and he was, unfortunately for the Bank of England, born a little too late, to trip up his heels, or those of the late Mr. Charles Price. He can do everything with a note that the patchers, and alterers, and simulators, can do, and a great deal more. Flimsy as a Bank note is to a proverb, he can split it into three perfect continuous, flat, and even leaves. He has forged more than one design sent into the Bank as an infallible preventive to forgery. You may, if you like, lend him a hundred pound note: he will undertake to discharge every trace of ink from it, and return it to you perfectly uninjured and a perfect blank. We are not quite sure that if you were to burn a Bank note and hand him the black cinders, that he would not bleach it, and join it, and conjure it back again into a very good-looking, payable piece of currency. But we _are_ sure of the truth of the following story, which we have from our friend the transcendant forger referred to; and who is no other than the chief of the Engraving and Engineering department of the Bank of England:

Some years ago--in the days of the thirty-shilling notes--a certain Irishman saved up the sum of eighty-seven pounds ten, in notes of the Bank of Ireland. As a sure means of securing this valuable property, he put it in the foot of an old stocking, and buried it in his garden, where Bank note paper couldn’t fail to keep dry, and to come out, when wanted, in the best preservation.

After leaving his treasure in this excellent place of deposit for some months, it occurred to the depositor to take a look at it, and see how it was getting on. He found the stocking-foot apparently full of the fragments of mildewed and broken mushrooms. No other shadow of a shade of eighty-seven pounds ten.

In the midst of his despair, the man had the sense not to disturb the ashes of his property. He took the stocking-foot in his hand, posted off to the Bank in Dublin, entered it one morning as soon as it was opened, and, staring at the clerk with a most extraordinary absence of all expression in his face, said:

“Ah, look at that, Sir! Can ye do anything for me?”

“What do you call this?” said the clerk.

“Eighty-sivin pound ten, praise the Lord, as I’m a sinner! Ohone! There was a twenty as was paid to me by Mr. Phalim O’Dowd, Sir, and a ten as was changed by Pat Reilly, and a five as was owen by Tim; and Ted Connor, ses he to ould Phillips--”

“Well! Never mind old Phillips. You have done it, my friend!”

“Oh Lord, Sir, and it’s done it I have, most com-plate! Oh, good luck to you, Sir, can you do nothing for me?”