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V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 30, July 22, 2001, Article 5 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Darryl Atchison writes: "Here is a rather sketchy query based upon some skimpy details sent to me by Bob Graham (a paper money enthusiast) in Ontario. There was apparently a text written sometimes in the 1890s called "Memoirs of a Great Detective" which featured numerous articles on counterfeiting operations including illustrations of a number of defaced printing plates which had been used to counterfeit notes issued by several Canadian chartered banks (including the Dominion Bank, Ontario Bank, Canadian Bank of Commerce and the Bank of British North America). The Canadian banknotes are discussed in Chapter 30, entitled "Million Dollar Counterfeit Ring" The first part of my question, is does anyone have more details on this text? I believe the author was J. Wilson Murray from Bob's brief notes. Does anyone know where it was published, who published it, a more accurate date, and the number of pages in the text. The second part of my question is perhaps more interesting. Apparently, this very text was the inspiration/basis for a television series of the 1980s or 1990s. Bob thinks that the main actor was Douglas Campbell. Does anyone know the name of the series? How many episodes were there - over what time period? And was Douglas Campbell the leading actor?" [Editor's notes: from internet search engines and various internet bookseller websites (primarily Alibris), I was able to piece together the following information: J. Wilson Murray (1840-1906) immigrated from Scotland. He became the Head of Detectives of the Canadian Southern Railway and later appointed Detective of the Department of Justice of the province of Ontario. His casebook was first published in 1904 and has long been out of print. The book is Murray's memoir of his career in law enforcement in rural Ontario from 1870 to 1900, "during which time he was effectively the only provincial policeman in the whole of Ontario, aside from the police forces of the larger cities." "During his lifetime Wilson was renowned for his innovative methods of criminal investigation. He was one of the first to realize the importance of footprints, to have clothing and weapons chemically tested, to have autopsies routinely performed on all murder victims." The 1904 book was published by William Heinemann and was titled "Memoirs of a Great Detective: Incidents in the Life of John Wilson Murray" The first Canadian Edition was published in Toronto in 1905 and has a fold-out of facsimile bank notes in rear. I assume the 1904 edition has similar fold-out plates. In 1979 Totem books published a paperback edition as a tie-in to a CBS-TV Series starring Douglas Campbell. I couldn't locate any further information on the series. In 1980 there was a Toronto reprint titled "Further Adventures of the Great Detective. Incidents in the Life of John Wilson Murray" This is a selection from the original 1904 publication with 40 additional stories. As luck would have it, the text of several chapters of the book, including chapter 30, is available online at the web site for Gaslight, an "Internet discussion list which reviews one story a week from the genres of mystery, adventure and The Weird, written between 1800 and 1919." The site is "a volunteer project under the auspices of the English Department at Mount Royal College" of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The web address and a couple excerpts follow. http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/murray30.htm http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/murymenu.htm "In the months of March, April and May in 1880," says Murray, "Canada was flooded with the most dangerous counterfeit bills ever put in circulation. Banks took the bogus banknotes over their own counters, and could not tell they were not genuine. Officials whose signatures were forged could not tell the forged signature from the genuine. Good and bad bills were laid side by side, an experts had to resort to scientific methods to tell which were good and which were bad. The bills appeared all over Canada. It is known now that over $1,000,000 of them were sent out." "One of the counterfeits was a United States $5 bill of the Government issue of 1875. It was one of the first to be discovered. It was detected in Washington by accident. An expert in connection with the Treasury Department happened to run across one of the new bills. He remarked that it was better work and a prettier bill than any he had ever seen. The one fault was the bill was too perfect. The expert took it to the Treasury Department to hunt up the series of numbers, and he found the bill was a counterfeit. Secret Service men were detailed at once. " Ultimately Murray traced and arrested the perpetrator, a man named Edwin Johnson. "Johnson then told me the whole story. He made the plates in the States. His daughters forged the signatures. They had been trained in forging or duplicating signatures since childhood. They would spend hours a day duplicating a single signature, and would work at the one name for months, writing it countless thousands of times. Jessie was better on larger handwriting, and Annie was better on smaller handwriting. The boys were learning to be engravers, and one or two of them were so proficient that the old man spoke of them with pride." ]

Wayne Homren, Editor

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