Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/63

46 fair education, one of the most skillful engravers and plate-printers in this country, and a most resolute, determined, untiring fellow, in any undertaking towards which from inclination, or for profit, he once fixedly turns his attention. From his youth upward, McCartney has, however, devoted his talents, his energies, his years and his mechanical skill to the art of counterfeiting; and his career has been most curiously successful in this direction, during the past more than quarter of a century.

Pete McCartney's field of operations has been limited to the West, principally, where he long since won the title of "King of Counterfeiters," in that region. His exploits are famous, his daring notable, his continuous success unparalleled, and his ability to elude detection altogether astonishing. The local Police in the West have time and again been baffled in their search for this shrewd criminal, and the United States authorities (under former management,) failed to secure the arch plotter, or bring him to answer, although over thirty thousand dollars had been expended by the Government in prior attempts to circumvent and capture this notorious and accomplished "koniacker," who led the tribe of counterfeiters in the great northwest, for years and years. It was left to the ingenuity of the present Chief of the United States Secret Service Division, and his accomplished Deputies, at last, to bring McCartney to account; and his final arrest by Col. Whitley and his aids, resulted in administering a damaging and effective blow to the interests of counterfeiters in the United States, who everywhere were more or less directly leagued with him and his immediate confederates in this crime.

McCartney is considered one of the best "cutters" in America. He is a good chemist, and a first-rate plate-printer. For many years he carried on his nefarious