In order to set up a first-class counterfeit shop for the turning out
of good paper counterfeits, there are so many indispensable requisites
on the part of the spurious money-makers that they get discouraged or
caught in most instances almost at the very outset of their would-be
easy money-making careers. All of the good engravers who are capable
of turning out good plates are more or less under the constant
supervision of the secret service officers, while the paper supply, or
its possible supply, is equally well watched.

Because gold and silver coins pass current out on the Pacific coast,
where notes do not yet circulate freely as in the east, California has
more counterfeiting cases than any other state in the Union, with
Pennsylvania, with its large foreign population in the mining regions,
a close second.

A moderately deceptive $5 silver certificate was made in Italy,
imported into this country by various gangs of Italians and passed
quite extensively in the eastern states, but the secret service
officers quickly got on to the source of issue, and made many arrests
and secured convictions. So closely did they hit the trail of a fairly
good counterfeit note issued in the west that they got the maker and
passer arrested and convicted and the plates captured so quickly that
it must have caused him acute pain. It was the same with a $10 note of
deceptive workmanship which appeared in New York. Only three of these
notes were circulated.

Of course there are plenty of counterfeit notes and coins in
circulation--if there were not the secret-service officers would have
an easy time of it--but the output has largely decreased as compared
with former years, and, unless all signs fail, it is likely to go
still lower, as the secret service officers become each year more
expert in detecting this class of crime and putting the criminals away
where they will serve the state the best. Gold certificates issued
below the denomination of $20, are numbered the same as treasury notes
and are check-lettered in their order upon each sheet.

The only denominations of the gold certificates which have been
counterfeited are the issues for $20 and $100, respectively, as the
gold certificates present a pretty tough counterfeiting proposition,
though most of the denominations of the various issues of the silver
certificates have been more or less extensively counterfeited, perhaps
the issues for $5 and $10, respectively, being the most