Originally published in "South Australian Weekly Chronicle" January 9, 1864.
[From the Express.]
A most daring attempt at forging bank-notes on a large scale has been made and, fortunately, frustrated in Melbourne. The guilty individual seems to have gone about his nefarious business in a very clumsy manner, unless, indeed, he proceeded on the supposition that every engraver was a rogue, and that forged notes would be, as a matter of course, executed without question or scruple.
The would-be forger, who calls himself Horatio Nelson, went, on the 15th of last October (1863), to the office of one Troedel, a lithographer, in Collins-street, and, without any preface or circumlocution, asked Troedel (his assistant, Mr. Rieman, being present) if he could engrave some cheques? Troedel said it was not necessay for him to engrave cheques as they could easily be got at the banks. "Horatio Nelson" then took from his pocket a £5 note of the New Zealand branch of the Bank of New South Wales, and asked Troedel if he could engrave "like that." Troedel, not suspecting, or but imperfectly comprehending his drift, asked if he meant "like the border." Horatio said — "Oh, no; the whole thing — the whole engraving;" and thereupon took from his pocket a £5 note of the Melbourne branch of the same bank, and said he should want four thousand New Zealand notes and two thousand Melbourne notes, all for £5 each.
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| Victorian Five Pound Note - 1848-62 Five Pounds Bank of New South Wales |
There is something really astounding in the cool audacity with which this order for wholesale forgery was given, the applicant evidently not having the slightest reason on earth for supposing that the tradesman he was patronising would be a party to a criminal act. Clearly he thought that an engraver might as harmlessly engrave forgeries as anything else, and that it was a piece of supererogation to sound him on the matter.
Troedel now began to see through his customer, and asked him to call again in a few hours for particulars as to cost, &c, at the same time requesting him to leave the pattern notes. This was done, and the engraver's next step was to place himself in communication with the police. It was now resolved to play the game out, and when Horatio Nelson called the second time, a detective officer was with Mr. Troedel in an adjoining apartment. The assistant, Mr. Rieman, asked Nelson if he was a private person, or if he came on account of the Bank, to which he replied, "Oh, never mind; I'll make that all right." Next morning another detective was added to the little party, and from that date, for several weeks, the game went on.
Without any effort to disguise his real object, Nelson, day after day, gave orders concerning the notes, and advanced various sums of money in payment of the workmen. When told that the Melbourne note was a very difficult one to engrave in consequence of there being so many minute £5's in the body of the note, he replied that they might omit the little £5's, as all he wanted was an imitation that would pass for genuine when examined by the naked eye!
On another occasion he said if these notes were so difficult to engrave, notes upon the Oriental Bank would do instead. After a while came the question of the engraving of the signatures, and although Troedel stated that it was customary to write them in with a pen, Nelson ordered the signatures to be engraved also, and advanced further money on that account.
One of the detectives during the greater portion of these negotiations had acted as an assistant to the engraver, so that the forger was actually divulging the whole of his own case to the police. On December 19, after many intervening visits, Horatio Nelson received from the hands of the detective officer twenty bundles of £5 notes, one hundred notes in each bundle, and left the shop, promising to call in a month for his still larger order of New Zealand notes.
Of course, now the pear was ripe. Horatio Nelson with £10,000 of cleverly forged notes under his arm was walking away in triumphant consciousness, as he thought, of security and success. But the other detective officer engaged in the business had watched him from Troedel's shop, and, after allowing him a little play, as a clever angler allows a prime fish, suddenly brought him to grass as he was turning into Flinders-lane. The prisoner stormed and vapored, said he was a nobleman, abused the detective, and ultimately showed fight. But it was of no avail. He had run to the full length of his tether, and in a few moments Horatio Nelson was locked up in the police cell, and his £10,000 worth of Melbourne notes was in the hands of the police authorities. Little suspecting that the officer who arrested him had been the unobserved and frequent witness of his visits to Troedel's shop, Nelson had the effrontery to say that he had brought out the whole of the notes with him from England, for banking purposes.
The prisoner has been committed for trial, and in the meanwhile nothing more will be elicited. It is, however, worthy of remark that of the two notes which he left with Troedel as patterns one was itself a forgery, although so closely imitated that Troedel himself does not appear to have been aware of the fact. The whole affair shows with what facility forged bank notes may be produced; for although they may not be, and seldom will be, such imitations as to deceive the vigilant and accustomed eyes of the bank clerks, they are proof against every chance of popular detection. Had Troedel been a dishonest instead of an honest man he would have been easily able to have arranged his own terms with the pseudo "Horatio Nelson," and £10,000 worth of spurious bank-notes would, in a few days, have been circulating throughout Victoria. Troedel, however, was an honest man, and so the forger met with his deserts. But are all engravers Troedels?
From "The Argus", February 16, 1864
OLD COURT-HOUSE.- MONDAY, FEB. 15.
(Before his Honour the Chief Justice.)
The February Criminal Sittings commenced as above, Dr. Sewell prosecuting on behalf of the Crown.
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| Police Court House & Town Hall, Swanston St, Melbourne, 1854 / S. T. Gill |
THE BANK FORGERY CASE.
Horatio Nelson was informed against, for having forged two thousand £5 notes, purporting to be those of the Bank of New South Wales. There were altogether nine counts in the information, in which the forging, purchasing with a fraudulent intent, deceiving without any lawful excuse, unlawfully possessing, engraving forged notes or causing them to be engraved, having unlawfully a forged plate in his custody, &c.
The prisoner pleaded "Not Guilty."
The facts of the case have been recently fully reported. The witnesses examined were Charles Troedel, a copper plate printer, in Collins-street east, with Detectives Eason and Berliner. Troedel's evidence was, that on Thursday, October 5 (1863), the prisoner came to his place of business and asked if witness could get some cheques engraved and pirinted. Witness showed him a sample of bank engravings of cheques and acceptances, He pointed out a bill of exchange, and asked the price. Afterwards he pulled out of his pocket a bank-note on the Bank of New South Wales (produced and identified), and asked witness if he could do those. He particularly pointed to the figure of 5 on the back of the note. Witness asked him whether he meant the border? Prisoner replied that he meant a full engraving. He then brought out another note on the Bank of New South Wales, in New Zealand, and asked the price of 2,000 of these and 4,000 of the former (Victoria). He asked if one plate would do for both, and witness told him it would not; if he wanted the two notes, he must have two plates. He then asked the price, but witness said he could not tell him just then. Some further conversation followed about the engraving and printing or writing the signature. Witness at last told prisoner he did not know if he could take the order, but that prisoner might call again during the evening. As soon as prisoner had left the shop, witness sent his assistant Lehman to the Detective-office to Berliner, who saw witness in the afternoon, and gave instructions how to proceed.
The prisoner returned shortly before five o'clock and saw Lehman. Witness was in the back shop, the next room. Heard Lehman ask prisoner if he was a manager of the bank? Prisoner said "Never mind I'll make it all right." Prisoner then paid £25 more, making, with the two genuine £5 notes, £35. Next saw the prisoner on the 30th October, in the back of the workshop. Lehman and Detective Berliner were there also. Prisoner came by appointment, and witness introduced Berliner as the engraver who was to undertake the job, and they had a conversation, in which prisoner said he need only make it so that the difference was not to be detected by the naked eye. Prisoner was told to come again in a fortnight, and he did so. He then said as there were so many difficulties in the back of the note of the Bank of New South Wales it would be better to try an Oriental Bank note; but this was got over, and he went away.
He came again on the 7th December, and witness was with Berliner in the next room. Went out and showed him the plate, when he spoke about the numbering, which was to be begun at 4,000. The plate was completed about a day before the 15th December, which day was appointed for its being ready. Prisoner came for tho plate and the notes, and gave an I O U for the balance due, saying he could not pay any more money just then but would do so in about a month. He took the notes and the plate away.
Detective Berliner corroborated Mr. Troedel's evidence as to the circumstances of the forged plate being ordered, paid for, and taken away with the notes by the prisoner, and also that the prisoner was watched for weeks by witness and Detective Eason. Both the detective officers, Eason and Berliner, proved the arrest of the prisoner with the notes and plate.
The prisoner declined to cross examine either of the witnesses or to address the jury.
The jury, almost without a minute's hesitation, found the prisoner "Guilty;" and the Chief Justice, after commenting upon the dangerous nature of the crime which the prisoner had committed, said he should pass a sentence which would mark his sense of the heinousness of the offence - eight years' hard labour on the roads.
Dr. SEWELL asked his Honour to direct an order to issue for rewarding the detective officers for their conduct in this case.
His HONOUR said he had no power to make such an order; but he should write to the proper authorities to that effect, expressing his high approval, not only of the course taken by the detective constables, but also of the conduct of the witness Troedel.
Sources:
Attempted Wholesale Forgery of Bank Notes (1864, January 9). South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1858 - 1867), p. 5.
Criminal Sittings (1864, February 16). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 6.
Victorian Five Pound Note - 1848-62 Five Pounds Bank of New South Wales Private Colonial Banknote; Pinterest
Police Court House & Town Hall, Swanston St, Melbourne, 1854; S.T.Gill, State Library of Victoria
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