Robert Spring, a 19th century forger, was so good at his profession that he was able to make his living for 15 years by selling false signatures of famous Americans. Spring was born in England in 1813 and【C1】___in Philadelphia in 1858 to open a bookstore. At first he prospered by selling his small but【C2】collection of early U. S. autographs. Discovering his ability at copying handwriting , he began【C3】signatures of George Washington and Ben Franklin and writing them on the title pages of old books. To lesson the chance of detection, he sent his forgeries to England and Canada for sale and【C4】___

Forgers have a hard time selling their products. A forger can’ t approach a【C5】___buyer must deal with people who don’ t have much knowledge in the field. Forgers have many ways to make their work look real. For example, they buy old books to use the【C6】___paper of the title page, and they can treat paper and ink with chemicals.

In Spring’s time,【C7】___after the Civil War, Britain was still fond of the Southern state, so Spring【C8】a respectable maiden lady known as Miss Fanny Jackson, the only daughter of General “Stonewall” Jackson. For several years Miss Fanny’ s【C9】problems forced her to sell a great number of letters and manuscripts belonging to her famous father. Spring had to work very hard to satisfy the demand. All this activity did not prevent Spring from dying in poverty, leaving sharp-eyed experts the difficult task of separating his forgeries from the【C10】___

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