CHEMICO-LEGAL INK (CONTINUED).
FAMOUS CASE OF CRITTEN V. CHEMICAL NATIONAL
BANK--STORY OF THE CASE INCLUDED IN THE
OPINION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS AS WRITTEN BY
JUSTICE EDGAR M. CULLEN--THE PINKERTON CASE OF
"BECKER"--STORY OF HOW HE SECURED $20,000
THROUGH THE ALTERATION OF A $12 CHECK--BECKER'S
COMMENTS ABOUT HIMSELF--A CRITICISM OF
BECKER AND HIS WORK--NAMES OF SOME CASES
IN WHICH CHEMICAL EVIDENCE WAS PRESENTED TO
COURTS AND JURIES.
THE books contain no clearer or more forcible exposition
of "Chemico-legal" ink, in its relationship to
facts adduced from illustrated scientific testimony, than
is to be found in the final opinion written by that
eminent jurist Hon. Edgar M. Cullen on behalf of the
majority of the Court of Appeals of the State of New
York, in the case of De Frees Critten v. The Chemical
National Bank. It was the author's privilege to be the
expert employed in the lower court about whose testimony
Judge Cullen remarks (N. Y. Rep., 171, p. 223)
"The alteration of the checks by Davis was established
beyond contradiction," and again, p. 227, "The skill
of the criminal has kept pace with the advance in
honest arts and a forgery may be made so skillfully
as to deceive not only the bank but the drawer of the
check as to the genuineness of his own signature."
The main facts are included in the portion of the
opinion cited:
"The plaintiffs kept a large and active account
with the defendant, and this action is to recover an
alleged balance of a deposit due to them from the
bank. The plaintiffs had in their employ a clerk
named Davis. It was the duty of Davis to fill up
the checks which it might be necessary for the
plaintiffs to give in the course of business, to make
corresponding entries in the stubs of the check book
and present the checks so prepared to Mr. Critten,
one of the plaintiffs, for signature, together with
the bills in payment of which they were drawn.
After signing a check Critten would place it and
the bill in an envelope addressed to the proper
party, seal the envelope and put it in the mailing
drawer. During the period from September, 1897,
to October, 1899, in twenty-four separate instances
Davis abstracted one of the envelopes from the
mailing drawer, opened it, obliterated by acids the
name of the payee and the amount specified in the
check, then made the check payable to cash and
raised its amount, in the majority of cases, by the
sum of $100. He would draw the money on the
check so altered from the defendant bank, pay the
bill for which the check was drawn in cash and
appropriate the excess. On one occasion Davis
did not collect the altered check from the defendant,
but deposited it to his own credit in another
bank. When a check was presented to Critten for
signature the number of dollars for which it was
drawn would be cut in the check by a punching instrument.
When Davis altered a check he would
punch a new figure in front of those already appearing
in the check. The checks so altered by
Davis were charged to the account of the plaintiff s,
which was balanced every two months and the
vouchers returned to them from the bank. To
Davis himself the plaintiffs, as a rule, intrusted the
verification of the bank balance. This work having
in the absence of Davis been committed to another
person, the forgeries were discovered and Davis
was arrested and punished. It is the amount of
these forged checks, over and above the sums for
which they were originally drawn, that this action
is brought to recover. The defendant pleaded
payment and charged negligence on plaintiff's part,
both in the manner in which the checks were
drawn and in the failure to discover the forgeries
when the pass book was balanced and the vouchers
surrendered. On the trial the alteration of the
checks by Davis was established beyond contradiction
and the substantial issue litigated was that
of the plaintiff's negligence. The referee rendered
a short decision in favor of the plaintiffs in which
he states as the ground of his decision that the
plaintiffs were not negligent either in signing the
checks as drawn by Davis or in failing to discover
the forgeries at an earlier date than that at which
they were made known to them.
"The relation existing between a bank and a
depositor being that of debtor and creditor, the
bank can justify a payment on the depositor's account
only upon the actual direction of the depositor.
'The question arising on such paper (checks)
between drawee and drawer, however, always relate
to what the one has authorized the other to do.
They are not questions of negligence or of liability
to parties upon commercial paper, but are those of
authority solely. The question of negligence
cannot arise unless the depositor has in
drawing his cheek left blanks unfilled, or by some
affirmative act of negligence has facilitated the
commission of a fraud by those into whose
hands the check may come.' (Crawford v. West
Side Bank, 100 N. Y. 50.) Therefore, when the
fraudulent alteration of the checks was proved, the
liability of the bank for their amount was made
out and it was incumbent upon the defendant to
establish affirmatively negligence on the plaintiff's
part to relieve it from the consequences of its
fault or misfortune in paying forged orders. Now,
while the drawer of a check may be liable where he
draws the instrument ill such ill incomplete state
as to facilitate or invite fraudulent alterations, it
is not the law that he is bound so to prepare the
cheek that nobody else call successfully tamper
with it. (Societe Generale v. Metropolitan Bank,
27 L. T. [N. S.] 849; Belknap v. National Bank
of North America, 100 Mass. 380) In the present
case the fraudulent alteration of the checks was
not merely in the perforation of the additional
figure, but in the obliteration of the written name
of the payee and the substitution therefor of the
word 'Cash.' Against this latter change of the
instrument the plaintiffs could not have been expected
to guard, and without that alteration it
would have no way profited the criminal to raise
the amount. . . ."
A Pinkerton case of international repute, best
known as the "Becker" case, included the successful
"raising" of a check by chemical means from
$12 to $22,000. The criminal author of this stupendous
fraud was Charles Becker, "king of forgers,"
who as an all round imitator of any writing and manipulator
of monetary instruments then stood at the
head of his "profession." Arrested and taken to
San Francisco he was brought to trial. Two of his
"pals" turned state's evidence, and Becker was sentenced
to a life term. Through an error on the part
of the trial judge he secured a new trial on an appeal
to the Supreme Court. The jury disagreed on a second
trial, but on the third trial he was convicted.
Becker pleaded for mercy, and as he was an old
man and showed signs of physical break-down, the
court was lenient with him. Seven years was his
sentence.
After his incarceration in San Quetin prison, he described
in one sentence how he had risen to the head
of the craft of forgers. "A world of patience, a heap
of time, and good inks,--that is the secret of my success
in the profession."
On completing his sentence, his reply to the question,
"What was the underlying motive which induced
you to forge?" was one word, "Vanity!"
The detailed facts which follow are from the "American
Banker:"
"On December 2, 1895, a smooth-speaking man,
under the name of A. H. Dean, hired an office in
the Chronicle building at San Francisco, under the
guise of a merchant broker, paid a month's rent in
advance, and on December 4 he went to the Bank
of Nevada and opened an account with $2,500
cash, saying that his account would run from
$2,000 to $30,000, and that he would want no
accommodation. He manipulated the account so as
to invite confidence, and on December 17 he deposited
a check or draft of the Bank of Woodland,
Cal., upon its correspondent, the Crocker-
Woolworth Bank of San Francisco. The amount was paid
to the credit of Dean, the check was sent through
the clearing-house, and was paid by the Crocker-
Woolworth Bank. The next day, the check having
been cleared, Dean called and drew out $20,000,
taking the cash in four bags of gold, the teller not
having paper money convenient. He had a vehicle
at the door, with his office boy inside as driver, and
away he went. At the end of the month, when
the Crocker-Woolworth Bank made returns to the
Woodland Bank, it included the draft for $22,000.
Here the fraud was discovered, and here the lesson
to bankers of advising drafts received a new
illustration. The Bank of Woodland had drawn no
such draft, and the only one it had drawn which
was not accounted for was one for twelve dollars,
issued in favor of A. H. Holmes to an innocent-
looking man, who, on December 9, called to ask
how he could send twelve dollars to a distant
friend, and whether it was better to send a money
order or an express order. When he was told he
could send it by bank draft, he seemed to have
learned something new; supposed that he could
not get a bank draft, and he took it, paying the fee.
Here came back that innocent twelve-dollar draft,
raised to $22,000, and on its way had cost somebody
$20,000 in gold.
"The almost absolute perfection with which the
draft had been forged had nearly defied the detection
of even the microscope. In the body of the
original $12 draft had been the words, 'Twelve
........ Dollars.' The forger, by the use of some
chemical preparation, had erased the final letters
'lve' from the word 'twelve,' and had substituted
the letters 'nty-two,' so that in place of the
'twelve,' is it appeared in the genuine draft,
there was the word 'twenty-two' in the forged
paper.
"In the space between the word 'twenty-two'
and the word 'dollars' the forger inserted the
word 'thousand,' so that in place of the draft
reading 'twelve dollars,' as at first, it read
'twenty-two thousand dollars,' as changed.
"In the original $12 draft, the figures '1' and
'2' and the character '$' had been punched so
that the combination read '$12.' The forger had
filled in these perforations with paper in such away
that the part filled in looked exactly like the field
of the paper. After having filled in the perforations,
he had perforated the paper with the combination,
'$22,000.'
"The dates, too, had been erased by the chemical
process, and in their stead were dates which
would make it appear that the paper bad been presented
for payment within a reasonable length of
time after it had been issued. The dates in the
original draft, if left on the forged draft, would
have been liable to arouse suspicion at the bank,
for they would have shown that the holder had departed
from custom in carrying, such a valuable paper
more than a few days.
"That was the extent of the forgeries which
had been made in the paper, the manner in
which they had been made betrayed the hand of
an expert forger. The interjected hand-writing
was so nearly like that in the original paper that it
took a great while to decide whether or not it was
a forgery.
"In the places where letters had been erased by
the use of chemicals the coloring of the paper had
been restored, so that it was well-nigh impossible
to detect a variance of the hue. It was the work
of an artist, with pen, ink, chemicals, camel's hair
brush, water colors, paper pulp and a perforating
machine. Moreover the crime was eighteen days
old, and the forger might be in Japan or on his
way to Europe. The Protective Committee of the
American Bankers' Association held a hurried consultation
as soon as the news of the forgery reached
New York, and orders were given to get this
forger, regardless of expense--he was too dangerous
a man to be at large. It was easier said than
done; but the skill of the Pinkertons was aroused
and the wires were made hot getting an accurate
description of Dean from all who had seen him.
Suspected bank criminals were shadowed night and
day to see if they connected with any one answering
the description, but patient, hard labor for
nearly two months did not seem to promise
much."
Not satisfied with their success in San Francisco
these same bank workers began a series of operations
in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. This information
by chance reached the Pinkertons who laid
a trap and captured two of the gang. Shortly afterward
Becker on information furnished by them was
also arrested, taken to California and after three separate
trials as before stated, sent to San Quetin.
This triumph of the forger's art, I examined in the
city of San Francisco and although it was not, the first
time I had been brought into contact with the work of
Becker, was compelled to admit that this particular
specimen was almost perfect and more nearly so with a
single exception than any other which had come under
my observation. Becker was a sort of genius in the juggling
of bank checks. He knew the values of ink and
the correct chemical to affect them. His paper mill
was his mouth, in which to manufacture specially
prepared pulp to fill in punch holes, which when
ironed over, made it most difficult to detect even with
a magnifying glass. He was able also to imitate
water marks and could reproduce the most intricate
designs. He says he has reformed.
During the last twenty years quite a number of
cases have been tried in New York City and vicinity
in which the question of inks was an all important one.
The titles of a few not already referred to are given.
herewith: Lawless-Flemming, Albinger Will, Phelan-
Press Publishing Co., Ryold, Kerr-Southwick, N. Y.
Dredging Co., Thorless-Nernst, Gekouski, Perkins,
Bedell forgeries, Storey, Lyddy, Clarke, Woods,
Baker, Trefethen, Dupont-Dubos, Schooley, Humphrey,
Dietz-Allen, Carter, and Rineard-Bowers.