Crime -- United States; Criminal justice, Administration of -- United States; Criminals -- United States
He returned to his office and detailed a dozen men to work on the East
Side and a dozen on the West Side, with orders to search out every
man in New York who manufactured rubber stamps. Before the end of the
afternoon the maker was found on the Bowery, near Houston Street. This
was his story: A couple of weeks before, a young man had come in and
ordered a certification stamp, drawing at the time a rough design
of what he wanted. The stamp, when first manufactured, had not been
satisfactory to him; and on his second visit, the customer had left a
piece of a check, carefully torn out in circular form, which showed
the certification which he desired copied. This fragment the maker
had retained, as well as a slip of paper, upon which the customer had
written the address of the place to which he wished the stamp sent--The
Young Men's Christian Association! The face of the fragment showed a
part of the maker's signature. The superintendent ran his eye over
a list of brokers and picked out the name of the firm most like the
hieroglyphics on the check. Then he telephoned over and asked to be
permitted to see their pay roll. Carefully comparing the signature
appearing thereon with the Y.M.C.A. slip, he picked his man in less than
ten minutes.
The latter was carefully trailed to his home, and thence to the Young
Men's Christian Association, after which he called on his fiancee at
her father's house. He spent the night at his own boarding place. Next
morning (Sunday) he was arrested on his way to church, and all the
securities (except some that he later returned) were discovered in his
room. More quick work! The amateur's method had been very simple. He
knew that the loan had been made and the bonds sent to the bank. So he
forged a check, certified it himself, and collected the securities. Of
course, he was a bungler and took a hundred rash chances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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