Forgery (Fr. forger, 'to form metal into shape,' 'to fabricate')—the crimen falsi of Roman law, in which it was punished with banishment or death, according to the enormity of the particular offence and the rank of the offender—may be roughly defined as ‘the fraudulent making or altering of a writing or seal to the prejudice of another man’s right, or of a stamp, to the prejudice of the revenue’ (East, Pleas of the Crown).
The essential elements in the crime of forgery are (1) that there should be in the offender an intention to deceive, and (2) that the fabrication or alteration should be sufficiently skilful to render possible the deception of a person using ordinary observation. It is not necessary that the fraudulent imitation should be exact. The fraudulent application of a real signature to a false document, and of a false signature to a real one, are both forgeries. In Scotland it has been held to be forgery fraudulently to sign the name, or add the cross or mark, of a person unable to write (Alison’s Criminal Law, i. 374), or the name of another on a false pretence that he gave authority so to do, or for a person to sign his own name with intention to pass off the signature as that of another person bearing the same name.
By the common law of England forgery was a mere misdeemeanour, and punishable as such by fine, imprisonment, and the pillory; though capital punishment was the usual penalty for the more serious class of offences under this head. In 1861, however, a statute was passed which made it felony (a) to counterfeit the great seal, the privy seal, the sign manual, the seals of Scotland or of Ireland, any stamp, exchequer bill, bank-note, bill of exchange, deed, receipt, order for the payment of money or the transfer of stock, will, register of births, marriages, and deaths, marriage license, or any one of various other enumerated documents, or (b) to have in possession without lawful excuse—such excuse to be proved by the party accused—any forged bank-note, &c., knowing it to be forged, or any frames, mould, plates, paper, &c., used in making such bank-notes. The act also made felonious certain practices connected with, or aiding in, the perpetration of the crime of forgery. By the Forgery Act, 1870, the forgery of stock certificates or of coupons issued by the Bank of England in payment of the interest of the national debt is a felony. Capital punishment in cases of forgery was restricted by acts passed between 1830 and 1832, and abolished in 1837. Under the consolidating Act of 1861 the punishment varies from penal servitude for life to not more than two years’ imprisonment, with or without hard labour. See TRADE-MARKS.
Long before the amendment of the laws of evidence, by which parties were admitted as witnesses in their own causes, it was provided in 1829 that the party whose name had been forged might be a witness to the effect that the writing was not his.
Comparison of handwriting is competent, but is not by itself conclusive evidence of forgery. Identification of handwriting is, if possible, more difficult than identification of the person, which so often forms the chief difficulty in criminal trials. ‘As illness, strange dress, unusual attitude, and the like, cause mistakes in identifying the individual, so a bad pen, or rough paper, a shaky hand, and many other things change the appearance of a person’s handwriting. This kind of evidence ought never, therefore, to be regarded as full proof by the crown in criminal trials; and even in civil cases corroborative evidence should be required, unless the proof of handwriting is so clear as to shift the onus probandi.’ The best witness is one who has often seen the party write, through whose hands his writing has been continually passing, and whose opinion is not the result of an inspection made on a particular occasion for a special purpose.
The writing of letters in another man’s name (as in the forged letters of the Parnell Commission) is not forgery in the statutory sense. See also FRAUD, COINING.
In the United States, also, falsification of writing is not necessarily forgery in a legal sense; the writing of letters and signing them with the name of another, however injurious to the feelings and interests of that other, is not forgery in law unless pecuniary rights, obligations, or engagements are intended to be directly affected by the false writing. The definition in Bishop’s Criminal Law (Boston, 1858) is: ‘Forgery is the false marking or materially altering, with intent to defraud, of any writing which, if genuine, might apparently be of legal efficacy in the foundation of a legal liability.’ At common law the publication or uttering of the forged instrument is not necessary to constitute forgery. But the statutes of the United States generally make the uttering or using of the forged instrument essential to the offence.
LITERARY FORGERIES.—Some of these deserve to be commemorated for their audacity or ability. They are to be distinguished from all use of more or less ingenious pseudonyms, devised to conceal the identity of a writer; and from all writings in imitation of some author’s style, and temporarily fathered upon him for mere literary purpose; as well as from so-called pious frauds, by which writings honestly intended for edification are connected with some more or less ancient name that commands respect. Such compositions as are deliberate attempts to pass for what they are not are literary forgeries, and are as unpardonable as forgeries of the signature of a London banker. The fictitious account of Formosa, with an alphabet and specimens of a language, published by George Psalmanazar in 1704, was such an imposture as could not long escape discovery. The most famous of such literary forgeries in English literature are connected with the name of Shakespeare—himself but a stalking-horse for another, according to thousands of half-educated people whom no evidence could satisfy. The famous Ireland forgeries began with an autograph of Shakespeare, fabricated by Samuel W. H. Ireland, to gratify his father, but soon grew into a heap of papers, and an entire play, entitled Vortigern, which was quickly damned at Drury Lane. The criticisms of Malone, and the alarm of young Ireland’s father, necessitated a confession, published in 1796. Twenty years before, Chatterton’s Rowley poems had opened up a bitter controversy about their authenticity, from which the boy-poet escaped by untimely suicide; and the Ossianic poems produced by MacPherson (1762–63) have been rank forgeries to a chain of scholars from Dr Johnson to J. F. Campbell, although as vigorously defended by many enthusiastic writers. The famous Perkins Folio of Shakespeare, said by J. P. Collier in 1852 to have been discovered, with an extensive series of contemporary marginal annotations, created a great commotion among Shakespeare scholars, but was at length unanimously condemned, and its annotations proved to be recent fabrications. In 1852 was published by Mr Moxon a series of letters by Shelley, which were discovered a few weeks later to be impudent forgeries, and were at once suppressed by the publisher. It was discovered that there was a brisk trade in the manufacture of letters, autographs, and marginal annotations upon books by Shelley, Byron, and others, and that many of these showed not only great technical skill in imitation, but no mean literary ability in their composition. It would be well for purchasers of letters and autographs of famous persons to make sure of their history, as there is still too good reason to believe that the supply of these is adapted to correspond with the demand. The most remarkable of all the dupes of literary forgers was Michel Chasles (q.v.), upon whom had been passed as many as 27,000 autographs, including those of Pascal, Shakespeare, Dante, and even Julius Cæsar. The fragment of a Moabite Deuteronomy, inscribed on fifteen pieces of sheepskin, brought to London in 1883 by Shapira, was a really skilful imitation, but failed to deceive the practised eyes of Dr Ginsburg and Clermont-Ganneau, and the forger or forger's dupe cut short his humiliation by suicide.