BANK NOTES FROM BUTTER PAPER

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1901, 8 November 1913, Page 11

BANK NOTES FROM BUTTER PAPER

REMARKABLE FORGERIES IN PRISON. A sensational discovery waß recently, made at Peterhead Prison, Aberdeen. Counterfeit £5 aud £1 notes have been in circulation, and the investigations of detectives havo traced these notes to tho prison, where it is found that convicts havo iised the paper in which their butter rations were served to forge these notes. It is believed that the passing of the notes was done by free Admiralty men who came in contact with the convicts at the Admiralty works. The notes are remarkable samples of the counterfeiter's skill. The notes were 1 hidden by convicts beneath the stones in tho Admiralty yard, and carried outside by other workmen. Long-service convicts are sent to Peterhead from all parts of Scotland. For somo little time past forged hank notes had been paid to local shopkeepers. The first was a £5 note which was passed in a very public way. Then other bad notes made their appearance, chiefly for £1. The counterfeits are all described as very passable imitations of real notes, though close examination reveals crudities in workmanship. Apparently the £1 and the £5 notes are not from tho same make, as tho £5

'notes are much better 6jpecimons than thoso of lower value. In Scotland, as in Ireland, bank-notes are much more frequently used, than in England, are printed on poorer paper, arid get dirty in passing from hand to hand.