Letterhead Merchants

In rural Alabama in the early 1890s, a group of men each set themselves up as merchandise dealers with printed business letterhead. Prosecutors said they wrote to suppliers in other states ordering goods, falsely vouched for one another as financially responsible, and never intended to pay. In one example, a letter was mailed to a shoe dealer in Massachusetts ordering samples and enclosing a worthless cheque drawn on an Alabama bank. The goods that arrived were diverted to the men's own use. Fourteen men were indicted for conspiring to defraud by means of the post office, and nine were convicted and sentenced to fines and imprisonment. On appeal they challenged the indictment and the use of handwriting comparisons to tie them to the letters.