The Unlucky Forger of Prescott
A small-time fraud artist meets a swift end to his career after failing to convince local merchants of his math.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As an expert forger and casher of bogus checks, John Lampson, a stranger from the Prescott neighborhood, yesterday proved a dismal failure. Instead of receiving goodly chunks of coin, he was unceremoniously chucked into jail by Officer Davis. Lampson induced a youngster at Prescott to buy him two checks on the North Pacific Flour Mills company, one for $6.25 and another for $7. He made a labored effort to raise the $6.25 check to $60.40 and the $7 check to $70. When he attempted to cash the $62.50 check at the Whitehouse Clothing Company's store, proprietor Guichard refused him. Officer Davis later apprehended Lampson coming out of the Third street alley, finding the checks and several drafts in his clothes.
“When he attempted to cash the $62.50 check at the Whitehouse Clothing Company's store, Proprietor Guichard said, 'Nay, nay, Pauline. Call again.'”
Forgery and identity theft remain perennial concerns in Walla Walla, though the 'laborious' manual alteration of paper checks has evolved into the sophisticated digital fraud that plagues local accounts today. The skepticism of the shopkeepers who caught Lampson remains the best first line of defense.
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