He had some fifteen hundred dollars on deposit in the Chemical Bank, as it seemed, when we went there; that was his balance, and he had had some three or four thousand there as his original deposit. He paid over to me the eight hundred and forty dollars; and on my reminding him that the widow had had a great deal of trouble, and would have a large bill to pay for services, he petulently asked, "How much?" and I said, "Suppose you make it nine hundred in all." He handed me sixty dollars more, with an angry, nervous look; and said it was "a hard thing for an entirely innocent man to be obliged to do; but the evidence looks very bad against me, or I would fight the case till I die." I smiled at him, as I was wont to smile at the guilty, who think to cheat one with words of protested innocence, and bade him good morning, and wended my way speedily to Newark, to report to the widow, and "settle up."
She insisted upon my taking just twice the sum I charged her, and was overjoyed at getting back her money, which she took care to put immediately in bank, and said she should never have any more money by her again than necessary for current expenses. She dreaded to have the roofer come back to board; but said she would abide by the bargain, and she did. He returned as usual that night. Everything went on as before. Madame announced, as was agreed, that the money had been found in another drawer (where, by the way, she, woman-like, insisted that it should be first put by me, in order that she might tell a "white lie" instead of a black one about it); and after the boarders had gratulated her upon her good fortune in finding the money, nothing more was said about the matter. The young roofer continued to board with her, according to the agreement, for some two months, and then left for quarters in New York.
His conduct at the house was perfectly exemplary; and when I saw the widow, on an occasion about a year after, she expressed her satisfaction at having taken no steps at law against him, for the theft, and said, that after all she sometimes would think, now and then, for a minute, that he was innocent; "but then, I think immediately, how absurd!" said she; "and I pity him; but I do believe he will be guilty never of such a crime again." She told me, too, that he had called on her two or three times during the year, and made her pleasant visits. Not a word passed between them about the money.
But the reader must not be over-surprised when I inform him, that about two years after the time I last spoke of above, I found in the examination of another case that the young roofer was, as he always had declared, entirely innocent of the theft, and that the Hungarian lawyer, one of the boarders, well knew that the roofer was innocent, and who was the guilty party, at the time he sent the widow to me. But this latter case has no special connection with the one I have here narrated, and I leave it for another time, stopping simply to say, that circumstantial evidence, while in its general character it is often more reliable than the oral testimony of living witnesses, who may be prejudiced or bribed, is nevertheless sometimes too strong, proves too much, and is liable to be misused. I have known several instances of this kind in my experience.
THE COUNTERFEIT MONEY SPECULATORS.
"MONEY"—THE COUNTERFEITERS' MORAL PHILOSOPHY—THE CUNNING OF BANK BILLS—NO VALID BANK BILLS ISSUED—A TRICK OF THE BANKS TO EVADE THE LAW—SWINDLING UNDER "COLOR OF LAW," AND IN DEFIANCE THEREOF; A VAST DISTINCTION—COUNTERFEITERS AS "PUBLIC BENEFACTORS"—THE REGULAR COUNTERFEITERS EMBARRASSED BY THE BOGUS ONES—MR. "FERGUSON'S" MARVELLOUS LETTER—COUNTLESS COMPLAINTS—THE "HONEST FARMER" OF VERMONT, AND HIS SPECULATION WITH THE COUNTERFEIT MONEY MEN—WHAT HE SENT FOR, AND WHAT HE GOT—A SECURELY DONE-UP PACKAGE—A "DOWN-CELLAR" SCENE—THE "HONEST FARMER'S" CONFUSION—A BIT OF LOCAL HISTORY RELATING TO THOMASTON, CONN.—THE HONEST OYSTER DEALER THERE, AND THE NINETY DOLLARS "C. O. D."—A QUESTION UNSETTLED—HOW THE "HONEST FARMER" OF VERMONT CHEATED ME AT LAST.
So long as a false "representative of value" is made a "medium of exchange," whether we call it "money," or what not; or whether it be made of gold, silver, or paper, or any other material, so long, probably, will it, in all its degrees of professed value, be counterfeited; and shrewd men, men who possess logical discrimination enough to see that one humbug is no worse in principle (though worse, perhaps, in the degree of bad principle) than another, will always be devising "illegal" plans of making money, as subtle and keen, almost, as the regular banking business.