to successful fraud if the process had been known to un scrupulous persons; for by its means Mr. Bessemer states there is not a government stamp or the paper seal of a cor porate body that every common office clerk could not forge in a few minutes at the office of his employer or at his own home. The production of a die from a common paper stamp is the work of only ten minutes; the materials cost less than one penny. No sort of technical skill is necessary and a common copying press or letter stamp yields most suc cessful copies. There is no need for the would-be forger to associate himself with a skillful die sinker capable of mak ing a good imitation in steel of the original for the merest tyro could make an absolute copy on the first attempt. The public knowledge of such a means of forging would at that time have shattered the whole system of the British Stamp Office had a knowledge of the method been allowed to escape. The secret has however been carefully guarded to this day. During the time that Mr. Bessemer was engaged in study ing this question he was informed that the government were themselves cognizant of the fact that they were losers to a great amount annually by the transfer of stamps from old and useless deeds to new skins of parchment thus mak ing the stamps do duty a second or third time to the serious loss of the revenue. One official in high position said tent of probably £100000 per annum. To fully appreciate the importance of this fact and realize the facility afforded for this species of fraud by the system then in use it must be understood that the ordinary impressed or embossed stamp such as is employed on all bills of exchange if im pressed directly on a skin of parchment would be entirely obliterated by exposing the deed for a few months to a damp atmosphere. The deed would thus appear as if un stamped and therefore invalid. To prevent this it has been the practice as far back as the reign of Queen Anne to gum a small piece of blue paper o
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