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Notes 29 1
Annuity Notes ch. Ten
|14| [Portrait ... of the Auditor —] from an engraving
on Copper.]
The use of this Portrait is to serve as a security
against Forgery. [As far as it goes it promises to be
superior to any other that either is or can be employ'd]
of all the subjects capable of employing
In Within the whole domain of the imitative arts, there is not
any other subject so difficult to imitate with success, and
of which a copy is so easy to distinguish for
in the instance of which, a copy is so easily distinguished from
the original, even by an unskilful eye, as an engraved portraiture figure of the human
countenance as exemplified in the portrait of a real
person, executed by an artist of the first rate.
The expedients secret marks hitherto employ'd in this view as securities
against forgery, for the protection in the instance of paper currency,
seem may be charged it may be affirmed that they are with being defective in principle.
Prevention they do not aim o They consist
as far as the engraving part is concerned [in the employment] of secret marks: marks which
if observed are not difficult to imitate, but which
it is hoped will not be observed. . Prevention they
do not point to: — detection is all they aim at.
A stroke or a dot placed as if by accident in a
particular part of the Note: or if nothing of that no such special mark sort
be employ'd, then the probability the only dependence is, that among the
in the assemblage of lines and points of which the
tenor of the note is composed, the imitation may fail
in some instance or other which a careful examination
will bring to notice. Prevention they do
not point to: detection they do not aim at.