Ringing The Change

crim. law. A trick practised by a criminal, by which, on receiving a good piece of money in payment of an article, he pretends it is not good, and, changing it, returns to the buyer a counterfeit one, as in the following: selling fruit about the streets, to have five apricots for sixpence, gave him a good shilling to change. The prisoner put the shilling into his mouth, as if to bite it in order to try its goodness, and, returning a shilling to the prosecutor, told him it was a bad one. The prosecutor gave him another good shilling, which he also affected to bite, and then returned another shilling, saying it was a bad one. The prosecutor gave him another good shilling, with which he practised this trick a third time; the shillings returned by him being, in every instance, bad.

2 Leach, 64.

This was held to be an uttering of false money.

1 Russ. on Cr. 114.