Index  Return to Colonial Events 1815

The Sydney Gazette 3 June 1815

JOSEPH LYCETT AND THE DETECTION OF FORGERIES

The Detection of Forgeries has in a great measure occupied the business of the Police Office for the last 10 days; and we are happy to report that from the patient perseverance of the Police Magistrate and the activity of his subordinates many discoveries have taken place in which the Public are materially interested. Among those in custody in the multifarious charges is a Mr. Lycett, who, unfortunately for the world as well as himself, had obtained sufficient knowledge of the graphic art to aid him in the practice of deception, in which he has outdone most of his predecessors. The bills of Mr. Thrupp he has imitated by a means that had not in this Colony been before resorted to by the ingenious. – The printing type used in such bills had been so well imitated in copper plate as to deceive the eye upon a slight glance, but when examined somewhat nearly not only the letters were found to disagree in size with each other, but there was not that indention on the back which the printing type leaves, and which had in a great measure served as a criterion for judging between a good and a bad bill. To obviate this difficulty the ingenious professor suggested the plan of sinking a block of brass, and leaving the letter prominent, by which means the indention of actual type would be imitated, and for a moment stagger the conception of the nicest judges. In concert with a man of the name of Dale he set up business, and in the course of a few days several hundreds of these forgeries (of 5s bills) were passed about the town. So impudent was the passer off Dale, that it is affirmed he in the course of one day paid away 25 at one house, ; the alarm was soon made general; and Mr. Dale was taken up on the charge of passing them. As soon as detected the sinner shewed a readiness to become a saint by making an honest confession of his dishonest acts; in doing which his unhappy colleague was a course drawn in, and also evinced a desire of confessing his crimes, hoping from thence a mitigation of their penalty. In the possession of Lycett was found a copper plat press in miniature, just of sufficient size to imitate the bills in circulation. The block of brass from which Mr. Thrupp’s bills were impressed, he at first declared he had destroyed; but as the Magistrate of Police had reason to believe the contrary, he found means to wrest it from his possession. What could be his motive for keeping it secreted after acknowledging to the fact is scarcely to be comprehended. To the culprit, Dale the disclosure of these frauds has been more than commonly important, as it has involved him in charges of the most heinous complexion. Though comfortably and comparatively respectably circumstanced by his admission to a subordinate clerkship in the Police Office itself, yet he appears to have formed a connexion with an unhappy felon in the gaol gang, whom, he made instrumental in most of his robberies. He has published his declaration likewise, by which other agents are implicated; and thus has a little new banditti been blighted as it budden, and directed the thanks of the Colony to the energy of its Police.