FORGERY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 315, 31 August 1932, Page 3

FORGERY

ACHIEVING NEW IMPORTANCE IN INTERNATIQNAL CRIME CIRCLES SOME FAMOUS CASES Forgery is achieving new ixxiportance in crime circles. This is attested by the recent settlement of the so-called Waterlow case, in which an old London corpox'ation was deceived into printing 580,000 unauthorised Portuguese banlc-notes, and by the deception practised by the late Ivar Kreuger. Forgeries, however, are committed not in financial circles; they have shaken the worlds of art axxd literature, and even the course of history has sometimes been altered by a well-planned forgery, says the "New York Times." One of the xnost skilful and . daring forgex'ies ever perpetrated was the great Bank of England forgery executed by George and Austin Bidwell, brothers, in the 1870's. Obtaining from a pick-pocket f ox-ged lettex*s of credit, they used them to great advantage in Livex'pool, Bordeaux, and Lyons, and then planned an attack on the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. Their first step was to counterfeit the blanks on which Bank of England bills of exchange were laid out. Through' their tailor, the forgers obtained an accouixt in London banlcs and in other reputable institutions, Austin Bidwell representing himself as a manufacturer. They manufactured false bills of exchange, using the naxnes of prominent corporations and soon these fraudulent papers were pouriixg ixito the Bank of England at the rate of £10,000 a day. But the plotters slipped up on a trifle; on two bills of lading the date was omitted and the game was soon up. Another sensational fox*gery was that of the Parnell letters. On 6th May, 1882 Lord Frederick Cavendish, just appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Mr. Burke, an official, were stabbed to death in Dublin. Five years later a 'Coercion bill for Ireland was submitted to the House of Commons. The- following morning a London newspaper printed in facsimile a number of letters,, signed with the nanxe of Charles Stewart Parnell, the Nationalist leader. In one was a statement — "though I regret the aceident of Lord F. Cavendish's death, I cannot refuse to admit that Bux'ke got no xnore than his deserts." The producer of the letters, a man called Piggot was finally convxcted of the forgery. The art forger has produced xnany spurious masterp'ieees. Rembrandt painted pex'haps seven or eight hundred canvases, of which, it has been x-emax-ked, "ten thousand are in America." More Corots have entered the port of New York than ever could have been pained by one man.