er
of the paper may have not the slightest protection from "raising" at
the hands of an expert. The manner in which the written and figure
amounts on the face of the check are placed makes the material
alteration of the amount easy beyond question.

For instance, the man who writes with a free, flowing, rounded hand
and leaves roomy spaces everywhere between words and figures becomes
an easy mark for a forger. This man is called upon to draw his check
for $4, even. He takes his check book and in the dollar line writes
the word "four" in his rounded hand, simply filling the rest of the
lined space with the plain flourish of his pen. Then in the upper
corner of the check he writes the attesting figure $4, with a dash
after it. That makes it a cinch for an expert check raiser to make it
$40 or $400 or $4,000.

Manifestly the only safeguard for such a check as this, even if it be
drawn upon chemical paper, is for the drawer to follow close upon the
written "four" with the blocking "No-100th" dollars, using the same
fraction as closely after the figure "4" in the corner of the check.
To leave no possible room after a final written or figure amount on a
check is the best possible precaution against raising it. For with
many checks the printed warning "Not good if drawn for more than one
hundred dollars," is a worthless precaution. In the above example it
is so, for the reason that raised as it is the amount still is within
the limit. Had the check been drawn in the same style for "six"
dollars, it would have been more easily and profitably raised to
"sixty." In the same general manner a slovenly "two" may be raised to
"twenty," "three" may be "thirty," "five" is made "fifty," "seven"
becomes "seventy," "eight" becomes "eighty," and "nine" is transformed
into "ninety"--all without erasures and without leaving telltale marks
upon a chemical paper.

In this way the average check which is made payable "to bearer" may be
a potential menace in a slow course through a dozen hands. While a
bank may require the holder of a "bearer" check to indorse his name
upon the back, that indorsement means nothing to him. The check is
payable to the bearer and the teller must pay it if it appears all
right and he is certain of the signature at the bottom.

For the average man who may write his checks at a desk, and who may be
willing to observe some system in the writing, perhaps the safest and
cheapest protection for his paper is to repeat