--------------
"MONEY"--THE COUNTERFEITERS' MORAL PHILOSOPHY--THE CUNNING OF
BANK BILLS--NO VALID BANK BILLS ISSUED--A TRICK OF THE BANKS TO
EVADE THE LAW--SWINDLING UNDER "COLOR OF LAW," AND IN DEFIANCE
THEREOF; A VAST DISTINCTION--COUNTERFEITERS AS "PUBLIC
BENEFACTORS"--THE REGULAR COUNTERFEITERS EMBARRASSED BY THE
BOGUS ONES--MR. "FERGUSON'S" MARVELLOUS LETTER--COUNTLESS
COMPLAINTS--THE "HONEST FARMER" OF VERMONT, AND HIS SPECULATION
WITH THE COUNTERFEIT MONEY MEN--WHAT HE SENT FOR, AND WHAT HE
GOT--A SECURELY DONE-UP PACKAGE--A "DOWN-CELLAR" SCENE--THE
"HONEST FARMER'S" CONFUSION--A BIT OF LOCAL HISTORY RELATING TO
THOMASTON, CONN.--THE HONEST OYSTER DEALER THERE, AND THE
NINETY DOLLARS "C. O. D."--A QUESTION UNSETTLED--HOW THE
"HONEST FARMER" OF VERMONT CHEATED ME AT LAST.
So long as a false "representative of value" is made a "medium of
exchange," whether we call it "money," or what not; or whether it be
made of gold, silver, or paper, or any other material, so long,
probably, will it, in all its degrees of professed value, be
counterfeited; and shrewd men, men who possess logical discrimination
enough to see that one humbug is no worse in principle (though worse,
perhaps, in the degree of bad principle) than another, will always be
devising "illegal" plans of making money, as subtle and keen, almost,
as the regular banking business.
It is probable, I think, that nothing more clever in the way of
cheating or robbery will ever be invented than the issuing of paper
money by private banks; for the business is so adroitly managed that it
is highly respectable,--which cannot exactly be said of some other
modes of cheating. A bank president and the cashier command much
respect in the city or the country village, and conduct their business
openly, too. Indeed, they are usually magnates in the community in
which they reside, and are intrusted, to large extent, with other
people's money, while the unfortunate fellow who cannot procure a
proper bank charter, and so has to content himself with running
illicitly a humble faro bank, is apt to be frowned upon by the
community. Perhaps a more pertinent example of the inability of the
masses to discriminate in moral affairs, could not well be suggested.
The country is flooded with counterfeit money, especially of the
"fractional currency" kind. Everybody takes it, and nearly everybody
who has a ten cent, or twenty-five cent, or fifty cent "representative
of value," of the spurious kind, lets it pass on, if it will. The
public conscience is not disturbed by these little things; and there
are a great many persons who let the one dollar and five dollar
counterfeit bills which they chance to receive, "go on doing their
accustomed good," into the hands of others. This course is illegal, and
therefore "immoral," and not right; and in another sense it is immoral,
because it is unjust and thievish in its character. But then, as some
simple people may be surprised to learn, nearly all the issues of
private banks are also thievish and unjust. Bank bills are not
generally issued according to the requirements of the law, and are,
therefore, not even legal money, and are of no more real worth than a
counterfeit bill, so long as the latter passes. It is in their
negotiability, or the passing thereof, that bank bills are valuable or
useful as a means of exchange. The counterfeit bill is just as
convenient so long as it does the work of "passing."
I do not know what is the fact regarding the private banks of
Connecticut, for example, nowadays; but a few years ago an eminent
lawyer of that State told me that he presumed there was not a single
bill legally issued by any of the Connecticut banks, the circulation of
which amounted in the aggregate at that time to millions of dollars.
The law of the State of Connecticut limited the issue of bills by any
bank to not over ten times as much in representative amount as the
"specie or bullion" which the given bank had constantly in its vaults.
If the bank's capital was, for example, $200,000, but invested in real
estate, then the bank could not properly issue a single dollar, unless
by some means it possessed itself of specie to hold in its vaults; even
then evading the spirit of the law. But my friend, the lawyer referred
to, informed me that none of the banks complied with the rule of
keeping the requisite specie in its vaults. Suppose a bank's issues
amounted to $300,000; to respect the law it would have to keep $30,000
specie on hand. Is it reasonable even to suppose it would do so when it
could readily loan the $30,000 to parties in New York at seven per
cent. interest, and thus make them "earn" $2,100 a year? Not at all;
and the banks did not heed the law.
But there were Bank Commissioners, whose duty it was (and there are the
same still, I suppose) to see to this matter, together with others
relating to banks. They visited the banks once or twice a year. When
about to make a visit, they sent word to the bank officers when to
expect them, and the officers of a given bank in Hartford or New Haven,
for example, went to other banks and borrowed from several, for the
time being, specie enough in the aggregate to make a "show" with. As
the commissioners, after visiting one bank, and making an examination,
were about to leave it and go to another, the specie found in the bank
examined, was sent off to the other bank, and there did service again;
and so on through the series of the city banks. The isolated country
banks, like that at Litchfield, had notice of the advent of the Bank
Commissioners, and sent to the city banks for a temporary loan of the
required specie.
Thus it was that the banks conducted their business illicitly, and it
is probable that at no time was a single dollar of their issues
properly predicated, and every dollar was therefore illegally issued.
But the bills passed,--passed as well as undiscovered counterfeit
bills,--and were, in reality, just as fictitious and illegal. But the
banks being more sharp, and having more facilities for covering up
their iniquity than have the counterfeiters, succeed in swindling the
people, year after year, without detection, while the poor
counterfeiters are frequently caught and punished, and their "capital"
(dies for "making" the money, paper, etc.) is destroyed; and thus their
business is interrupted, very much to the detriment of its profits, and
their laboriously-earned skill, as "business men," made as nought, and
all their valuable time in perfecting themselves in their business also
lost. It is sad to reflect upon this; but the picture would be sadder,
perhaps, if added to these irregular swindlers, were the regular bank
swindlers of the land.
So when one comes to analyze matters, no great moral distinction is
found between two persons, one of whom swindles under "color of law,"
while the other swindles in defiance of law. The latter is perhaps the
braver (though less sagacious) man of the two. It is, after all, only a
question of taste or expediency; and so is it that the great
counterfeiters think. Officers arresting these men, frequently find
them ready to defend their cause "on principle." They always avow
themselves "as good men as the bankers," and they frequently declare
themselves public benefactors, in that they make money plenty, and
relieve the stringency of the money market!
"The only good of paper money," once said a great counterfeiter to me,
"is to pass; a counterfeit bill is just as good for passing as a
genuine bill; and if you folks would let us "private bankers" alone
long enough to give us time to perfect our business, we should be able
to produce "goods" so perfect that nobody would find any fault with
them, and all would feel grateful to us. But it costs us a great deal
to get well started in business; and just as we are beginning to
thrive, you step in and break us up!"
The man to whom I allude was _serious_ in what he said. Of course he
was lacking in moral perceptions, and was, in one sense, demented, or a
"great fool;" for he could not see the moral difference between one
kind of robbery and another one just like it in principle. I pitied the
man's moral obliquity, while I handed him over to the jail-keeper to
await trial. (I am sorry to say that the fellow, for some reason, was
never brought to trial. The District Attorney "_nolled_" the case,
although the evidence was clear enough against the "private banker." I
half suspect that the attorney admired the fellow's reasoning, and
sympathized with him.)
Under the circumstances, it is not then strange that a large number of
persons of excellent talent, are engaged in counterfeiting, or in the
distribution (or "shoving," to use the technical phrase), of
counterfeit money in this country, and the distributors are to be found
in all classes. I have in my mind's eye, as I write, an "honest
farmer," in a certain town in the State of Vermont, who manifested, in
the goodly "year of our Lord," 1870, an excellent disposition to help
the counterfeiters distribute their goods, but who was sadly
"disappointed" in his enterprising spirit.
Almost every business has its counterfeiters. As surely as a man
conceives of some practical, easy, business way of making money, so
sure is he to find a host of competitors springing up about him, and
injuring his business. This has been the fate, to considerable extent,
of the regular counterfeiters,--the men, who, by their great talent as
engravers, have added so much to the mechanical skill of the country.
There is a plenty of scamps in such a place as New York, for instance,
who always stand ready to profit by other people's labors. (I should
not like to be called upon for a classification of these scamps, for
fear that the various species of the genus "who profit by other
people's labors" might include some reader's most respectable friends.)
The regular counterfeiters have been greatly embarrassed, within the
last two or three years, by a lot of unscrupulous villains, who pretend
to deal in counterfeit money, and who send their advertising circulars
into every town and hamlet in the land. The regular counterfeiters can
only thrive when they are able to make their wares pass; and these
unscrupulous villains, to whom I allude above, are likely to injure the
business, and thus reduce the brave, bold, ingenious counterfeiters to
the condition, perhaps, of "private bankers," whose course is that only
of cowardly, false pretences, under "color" or shield of the law. This
is a state of things which is not a little deplorable--for the
counterfeiters.
The business of these unscrupulous villains, whom we will call, if the
reader please, counterfeit money speculators (for "speculators" is a
name which one should not fail to honor as often as he can), is very
extensive. To give the uninitiated reader a little insight into the
business of these men, one of their circulars is copied below. It is a
fair sample, in regard to its substance, of all that are issued by
these "speculators." The one before me, and which I copy here, is a
lithographed manuscript letter.
(To explain, for the benefit of youthful readers:--The "speculator"
first writes a letter, in neat style of penmanship, and then gets it
copied by an engraver on stone, and from the plate thus obtained is
able to strike off a large number a day. Probably one third of those
who receive these letters do not know that they are, in fact,
"printed," and each ignorant receiver feels flattered as he reads the
letter that the "speculator" has taken the pains to write to him so
extendedly, and is led to "think over" the matter, and finally to
"invest," when he would have taken no notice of a "printed" document.)