The Customs Inspector Who Planned to Print His Own Money

Port Townsend, May 5.—Special.—The police have unearthed and broken up a plan to flood the Lower Sound with counterfeit money. The principal in the game was a United States customs inspector, Jack Miller, who, as soon as he learned that the officers had been apprised of his plans to manufacture spurious money, tendered his resignation to Collector of Customs Saunders. The matter of his resignation was kept secret for several days, and before the police were aware that he had terminated his connection with the government Miller had left the United States. He had been in the customs service since July, 1889.

For over two years Miller had openly lived with a French woman. A few weeks ago he brutally beat his mistress, and she sought the protection of the police. Then, in a fit of desperation, she disclosed the details of a plan Miller was working on to manufacture bogus money. She told the police where the “plant” could be found. Knowing the character of the woman, and that in a few days her differences with Miller might have been adjusted, Chief of Police Wilkes decided to search the apartments.

There were found several ladles of different sizes used for heating metals, and a model for a mold. At the foundry Miller had placed an order for another mold of such a character that it could be filled with plaster or wax and the perfect impression of a silver dollar obtained.

The statement made by the woman was verified, except that the officers were unable to find any counterfeit money. Around town, however, for several months there had been more or less bogus silver traced to Miller.

Subsequently the woman was released from prison. Miller was notified that the police had searched his room and seized the ladles and molds, but he made no protest and quietly tendered his resignation to the collector of customs and left on one of the midnight boats for Victoria.

Usually counterfeiting done in this country has been from dies stolen from the mints or facsimiles made from hard metal. The present plan seemed far more ingenious: after manufacturing all the money wanted, the plaster of Paris dies could be destroyed and the evidence of having coin dies in the counterfeiter’s possession could thereby be removed. Chief of Police Wilkes gave out the following information:

The mold is composed of two pieces of iron attached at one end by a kind of hinge and opening at the other, something like a lemon squeezer. When Miller took his model to Mr. Thurlow, manager of the foundry, the latter suggested that a lemon squeezer could be bought cheaper than he could make it. Miller replied that he was not after lemon squeezers. The entire mold is about eight or ten inches long, the body perhaps three inches wide and six long, the remainder extending out in two handles, used to squeeze or impress whatever is in the two small plates on the inside. In these shallow spaces it was undoubtedly the intention to pour soft plaster of some kind, after which a silver dollar would be placed on the surface and squeezed down, some kind of oil being used to prevent it from sticking. After the cement hardened it is thought the dollar would then be knocked out, leaving a perfect impression of the coin, as good as a die. If the operator then melted whatever he had been using in the ladles found, and succeeded in that way, the country could be flooded with spurious money, and after each batch was run off the maker could destroy the plaster.

Miller was taken to the private room of the chief and confronted with the tools and told that he had been given away by a pal. He stoutly denied having done any wrong, although he could give no satisfactory account of what he intended to do with the mold.