same day, he buys another draft for $5,000.  The first draft is successfully altered to $5,000, but would not of course be paid by the correspondent bank for this amount, because of the advice they have of this number is that it was issued for $5; but it was a simpler matter to change the number of the draft to correspond with the $5,000 draft, the number of which the forger has, than it is to make the other alterations necessary to raise it from $5 to $5,000.  After making these alterations it goes in for payment, and on reference to the advice sheet it is found that this apparent number was issued for $5,000 and paid accordingly.  Then the forgers have simply the problem on hand to avail themselves, either directly through the bank of issue or elsewhere of this genuine $5,000 draft, which is certainly not a hard task for the men who have successfully performed the harder one.

CHAPTER XXII

A FAMOUS FORGERY

The Morey-Garfield Letter—­Attempt to Defeat Mr. Garfield for the
Presidency—­A Clumsy Forgery—­Both Letters Reproduced—­Evidences of
Forgery Pointed Out—­The Work of an Illiterate Man—­Crude Imitations
Apparent—­Undoubtedly the Greatest Forgery of the Age—­General
Garfield’s Quick Disclaimer Kills Effect of the Forgery—­The Letters
Compared and Evidences of Forgery Made Complete.

Very few cases have arisen in this country in which the genuineness of handwriting was the chief contention, and in which such momentous interests were at stake, as in the case of the forged “Morey-Garfield Letter.”  It was such as to arouse and alarm every citizen of the republic.  A few days prior to the presidential election of 1880, in which James A. Garfield was the Republican nominee, there was published in a New York Democratic daily paper, a letter purporting to have been written to a Mr. H.L.  Morey, who was alleged to have been connected with an organization of the cheap-labor movement.  The letter, if written by Mr. Garfield, committed him in the broadest and fullest manner to the employment of Chinese cheap labor.  It was a cheap political trick, a rank forgery, and the purpose of the letter was to arouse the labor vote in close states against Mr. Garfield.  It was also a bungling forgery.  We present herewith facsimiles of the forged letter and one written by Mr. Garfield branding the Morey letter a fraud.

[Illustration:  The Morey-Garfield forgery.]

[Illustration:  Letter written by Garfield.]

The Morey letter was evidently written by an uneducated man.  Here are three instances of wrong spelling that a man of Mr. Garfield’s education could not possibly make.  The words “ecomony” and “Companys” in the eighth line and “religeously” in the twelfth line give evidence of a fraudulent and deceitful letter at once.