308 
Transactions of the Society. 
Slide 25 (plate IV. fig. 9) is a photograph of a promissory note 
made by “ Halsey Knapp ” payable to “ Charles Lewis, or bearer,” 
with pen-marks drawn across the words “or bearer” indicating 
erasure. This note, dated Butler, N.Y., March 20, 1884, endorsed 
by Eli Knapp, was in the possession of the maker, Halsey Knapp, 
Fig. 34 . 
during about nine months before it was taken to Charles Lewis living 
in another part of New York State. The note then remained in the 
hands of Charles Lewis for three years. At the end of the three 
years, Halsey Knapp being unable to meet the obligation, Charles 
Lewis brought an action in the supreme court of New York State 
against the endorser, Eli Knapp, to recover the amount of the note. 
The endorser had refused to redeem the note because he had not received 
a notice of protest to which he claimed he had been entitled. He 
claimed the note had been altered, the words “ or bearer ” erased by 
Mr. Lewis so as to make it appear that he had not been entitled to a 
notice of protest. Mr. Lewis, on the other hand, claimed that the 
erasure of the words “or bearer ” was made by the maker, Halsey 
Knapp, and was a part of the original note. (In New York State an 
endorser of a note is entitled to a notice of protest in the case of a 
negotiable note, made negotiable by being drawn payable to “a 
bearer,” and not in the case of a non-negotiable note.) The chemical 
laboratory of Cornell University could only go so far as to say that 
the ink of the note as a whole and that of the lines of erasure were 
