In Tennessee, forgery may be committed by typewriting the body of and signature to an instrument which may be the subject of forgery (1906; State v. Bradley, 116 Tenn. 711).

In Vermont, the act of 1904, p. 135, no. 115, § 24, authorizes licensees to sell intoxicating liquors only on the written prescription of a legally qualified physician stating that it “is given and necessary for medicinal use.” It was held that a prescription containing no such statement was invalid and the alteration thereof was not forgery (1906; State v. McManus, 78 St. 433).

Authorities.—Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law; Stephen, Digest of Criminal Law; History of Criminal Law; L.O. Pike, History of Crime in England, 1873-1876; Russell, On Crimes; Archbold, Criminal Pleadings.

FORGET-ME-NOT, or Scorpion-Grass (Ger. Vergissmeinnicht, Fr. grémillet, scorpionne), the name popularly applied to the small annual or perennial herbs forming the genus Myosotis of the natural order Boraginaceae, so called from the Greek μῦς, a mouse, and οὖς, an ear, on account of the shape of the leaves. The genus is represented in Europe, north Asia, North America and Australia, and is characterized by oblong or linear stem-leaves, flowers in terminal scorpioid cymes, small blue, pink or white flowers, a five-cleft persistent calyx, a salver- or funnel-shaped corolla, having its mouth closed by five short scales and hard, smooth, shining nutlets. The common or true forget-me-not, M. palustris, is a perennial plant growing to a height of 6 to 18 in., with rootstock creeping, stem clothed with lax spreading hairs, leaves light green, and somewhat shining, buds pink, becoming blue as they expand, and corolla rotate, broad, with retuse lobes and bright blue with a yellow centre. The divisions of the calyx extend only about one-third the length of the corolla, whereas in the other British species of Myosotis it is deeply cleft. The forget-me-not, a favourite with poets, and the symbol of constancy, is a frequent ornament of brooks, rivers and ditches, and, according to an old German tradition, received its name from the last words of a knight who was drowned in the attempt to procure the flower for his lady. It attains its greatest perfection under cultivation, and, as it flowers throughout the summer, is used with good effect for garden borders; a variety, M. strigulosa, is more hairy and erect, and its flowers are smaller. In M. versicolor the flowers are yellow when first open and change generally to a dull blue; sometimes they are permanently yellowish-white. Of the species in cultivation, M. dissitiflora, 6 to 8 in., with large handsome abundant sky-blue flowers, is the best and earliest, flowering from February onwards; it does well in light cool soils, preferring peaty ones, and should be renewed annually from seeds or cuttings. M. rupicola, or M. alpestris, 2 to 3 in., intense blue, is a fine rock plant, preferring shady situations and gritty soil; M. azorica (a native of the Azores) with purple, ultimately blue flowers about half an inch across, has a similar habit but larger flowers; M. sylvatica, 1 ft., blue, pink or white, used for spring bedding, should be sown annually in August.

FORGING, the craft of the smith, or “blacksmith,” exercised on malleable iron and steel, in the production of works of constructive utility and of ornament. It differs from founding (q.v.) in the fact that the metal is never melted. It is essentially a moulding process, the iron or steel being worked at a full red, or white, heat when it is in a plastic and more or less pasty condition. Consequently the tools used are in the main counterparts of the shapes desired, and they mould by impact. All the operations of forging may be reduced to a few very simple ones: (1) Reducing or drawing down from a larger to a smaller section (“fullering” and “swaging”); (2) enlargement of a smaller to a larger portion (“upsetting”); (3) bending, or turning round to any angle of curvature; (4) uniting one piece of metal to another (“welding”); (5) the formation of holes by punching; and (6) severance, or cutting off. These include all the operations that are done at the anvil. In none of these processes, the last excepted, is the use of a sharp cutting tool involved, and therefore there is no violence done to the fibre of the malleable metal. Nor have the tools of the smith any sharp edges, except the cutting-off tools or “setts.” The essential fact of the flow of the metal, which is viscous when at a full red heat, must never be lost sight of; and in forging wrought iron the judgment of the smith must be exercised in arranging the direction of the fibre in a way best calculated to secure maximum strength.

Fig. 1.

Fullering denotes the preliminary roughing-down of the material between tools having convex edges; swaging, the completion or finishing process between swages, or dies of definite shape, nearly hemispherical in form. When a bar has to be reduced Fullering and swaging. from larger to smaller dimensions, it is laid upon a fuller or round-faced stake, set in the anvil, or, in some cases, on a flat face (fig. 1), and blows are dealt upon that portion of the face which lies exactly opposite with a fullering tool A, grasped by a rather loosely-fitting handle and struck on its head by a sledge. The position of the piece of work is quickly changed at brief intervals in order to bring successive portions under the action of the swages until the reduction is completed; the upper face, and if a bottom fuller is used the under face also, is thus left corrugated slightly. These corrugations are then removed either by a flatter, if the surfaces are plane (fig. 2), or by hollow swages, if the cross section is circular (fig. 3). Spring swages (fig. 4) are frequently used instead of separate “top and bottom tools.” Frequently swaging is practised at once, without the preliminary detail of fullering. It is adopted when the amount of reduction is slight, and also when a steam hammer or other type of power hammer is available. This process of drawing down or fullering is, when practicable, adopted in preference to either upsetting or welding, because it is open to no objection, and involves no risk of damage to the material, while it improves the metal by consolidating its fibres. But its limitations in anvil work lie in the tediousness of the operation, when the part to be reduced is very much less in diameter, and very much longer, than the original piece of bar. Then there are other alternatives.

Fig. 2.Fig. 3.