398 Intelligence and Miscellanies. 



34. Prevention of forgery. — Messrs. James Atwater and 

 N. & S. S. Jocelyn, of this city, have completed a plan to 

 prevent forgeries and alterations of bank checks, drafts, bills 

 of exchange, post notes, notes of hand, and other similar in- 

 struments. 



The labor of carrying into effect such a design may be in 

 some measure understood when it is considered, that to the 

 accomplishment of a plan which shall obviate all the diffi- 

 culties of the present mode of doing business, particularly by 

 means of checks, the several following points should be com- 

 passed, viz. 



Banks should be protected against losses arising from the 

 depredations of swindlers, effected both by original forgeries 

 and by alterations of genuine checks, and the characters of 

 honest dealers, and tellers of banks, should be preserved 

 from the unjust suspicions which may now sometimes arise 

 from the impossibility of tracing a forgery to its origin. All 

 these exposures exist in the present mode of transacting the 

 business of banks, and the calamitous consequences too fre- 

 quently arrest the public attention. 



That these various objects can be embraced in one plan, 

 within the ordinary limits of instruments of the kinds referred 

 to, and yet admit of that simplicity and facility which the 

 rapid transaction of business requires, is an idea, which, if it 

 ever occurred to any person, was probably regarded only as 

 something to be desired, but scarcely to be hoped for ; and 

 consequently, the old and exposed method has continued in 

 use, with all its temptations to the vicious and the unfortu- 

 nate. It is believed that no attempts have been made hith- 

 erto to accomplish more than one of these objects, and that 

 with but doubtful success. 



The inventors of the plan now spoken of (which they are 

 securing by patent) claim to themselves the merit of conceiv- 

 ing and executing the whole combination of desiderata, and 

 of removing all the obstacles which necessarily present them- 

 selves in an attempt to establish a consistency in the union of 

 so many important points. In the labor and experiments 

 consequent on this undertaking, they have spent more than 

 an entire year ; and the result, in the estimation of gentlemen 

 connected with banking institutions, is such as to justify the 

 opinion, that their efforts have been successful, and that the 

 general adoption of this plan will secure the most desirable 

 consequences. It is considered as original; and in the opin- 



