AS &)m> Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/amesonforgeryitsOOames AMES ON FORGERY AMES ON FORGERY ITS DETECTION AND ILLUSTRATION WITH NUMEROUS CAUSES CELEBRES (illustrated) BY DANIEL T. AMES Founder and twenty years Editor of The Penman’s Art Journal of New York; Author of Ames’s Compendium of Practical and Artistic Penmanship, Ames’s Alphabets, Ames’s Guide to Practical Writing; and thirty years Examiner of Contested Handwriting in Courts of Justice. SAN FRANCISCO DANIEL T. AMES 24 POST STREET NEW YORK AMES-ROLLINSON COMPANY 19 0 0 ■KjP 93 (W fosi I %o Entered According to Act of Congress in the Year 1899, by DANIEL T. AMES, IN the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. THE GETTY CENTER LIBRARY Over fifty noted cases explained and illustrated, making more than seventy pages of engravings Many of the cases are among the most celebrated in the world. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Preface. 9 Introductory. 13 CHAPTER I. Personality in handwriting — What constitutes personality, and how it comes into writing so as to distinguish the writing of one person from that of another—No two handwritings can possibly be identically the same—-Habit of writing — How formed, and how it operates to detect and illustrate forged and spurious writing — School versus adult writ¬ ing-— Nations as well as individuals are distinguished by their writing — Eccentric persons develop an eccentric style of writing — Examples of eccentric and other styles of writing—Sex in writing. 19-42 CHAPTER II. Movements in writing defined and illustrated — Styles of writ¬ ing: angular, semi-angular, round-shaded, upright, and back-hand. 43-46 CHAPTER III. Writing under abnormal circumstances — With the left hand — By persons intoxicated, nervous, assisted, or hypnotized — With pencil or stylographic pen. 47-56 CHAPTER IV. Signatures or other writing never written twice alike — How¬ land will contest. 57-58 CHAPTER V. Persons do not always recognize their own signatures — Notable instances cited. 59-61 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. Writing over folds in the paper and one ink-line over another—, Indications by which the facts may be determined—Im¬ portant cases cited and illustrated. 62-67 CHAPTER VII. Methods of forgery, their detection and illustration — Forgery by the aid of a tracing, how effected, and the inevitable indications; also, free-hand forgery, and the methods of its detection.„.. 68-72 CHAPTER VIII. The use of expert testimony respecting handwriting — His¬ torical cases in English, French, and American courts, and the estimate placed upon such testimony by high judicial authority. 73-83 CHAPTER IX. Sources of expert knowledge, and who may give testimony as experts —The legal definition of the word “expert” .... 84-87 CHAPTER X. Experts should be employed by the court — They should be able to make plain the reasons for their opinions — Illus¬ trations should be made by photographs, or with crayon upon blackboard or paper. . 88-92 CHAPTER XI. Disguised and imitated writing — Case of Everett v. Wilkinson illustrative of disguised writing. 93 - 99 CHAPTER XII. Certainty of conclusions reached through expert comparisons of writing—Must vary in degree, with the circumstances of each case — The genuineness or ungenuineness of writ¬ ing is not determined by any one thing, but by a series of instances where the true characteristics are present or absent, as the case may be — Examples: a bank case in New York, and the Bird case, Los Angeles, California. . . 100-109 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER XIII. Why experts differ in their opinions — Not all who give testi¬ mony as experts are qualified to do so—-Often through the seeking of attorneys, incompetent or mercenary witnesses are employed as experts to disparage the testi¬ mony of skilled and honest experts.110-114 CHAPTER XIV. Inserted sheets in documents—-Added or changed entries in books of accounts —Ink and pencil erasures — Identifica¬ tion of typewriting.115-118 CHAPTER XV. The frequency of forgery — Largely against estates — Several ingenious and interesting cases cited and illustrated — The Fuller case, in Newport, Vermont —The Miser Russell case, in New York City—A forged note against the Jacob Erwin estate, Jersey City, N. J. — Forged notes against the Gillespie estate, Warsaw, N. Y.119-129 CHAPTER XVI. The Lewis will contest, Hoboken, N. J. — Forgeries against the estate of James G. Fair, San Francisco, Cal.—Forged will of A. J. Davis, of Butte, Montana—-Forged check and note against the Dodge estate, Plymouth, N. H.— Forged deed, Kingston, N. Y. — Baker will contest, Toronto — Gordon will contest, Jersey City, N. J.— Forgery against the Redfield estate, Syracuse, N. Y.— The Murdock alleged forgery, Willows, Cal.—The Morey- Garfield forged letter — Cadet Whittaker case, West Point — Collum-Blaisdell alleged forgery, Minneapolis — Botkin murder case, San Francisco — Dr. Kennedy mur¬ der case, New York — Hunter-Long forgery, Philadelphia — Becker raised draft, San Francisco (all illustrated) . . . . 130-215 CHAPTER XVII. The trial of Roland B. Molineux in New York for the murder of Mrs. Katharine J. Adams by means of poison sent through the United States mail (fully illustrated).216-236 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. Report of the writer on the celebrated Dreyfus case, Paris, France.237-241 CHAPTER XIX. The J unius Letters — Abstract from the celebrated work of Sir Edward Twisleton, embodying the report of the famous English expert, Chabot, on the authorship of the Junius Letters (with numerous examples of both Junius’s and Francis’s writing)..242-254 CHAPTER XX. Qualifying an expert witness — Use of photographs and black¬ board. 255-259 CHAPTER XXL Kinds of inks — Their composition—Copying-ink — Safety ink — Colored inks—Tests of inks, for the purpose of determining their identity — Ink erasures by chemicals and their restoration — Evidence as to the relative ages of ink upon documents—Judging of the colors of inks..260-271 CHAPTER XXII. Paper — Materials used and methods of manufacture — Water¬ mark erasures, etc.272-275 CHAPTER XXIII. Divination of character from handwriting — Some remarkable instances quoted.276-281 CHAPTER XXIV. Dermal lines of the thumb as a means of personal identity. . . .282-283 PREFACE. One science only will one genius fit, So wide is art, so narrow human wit.— Pope. This is the age of the Specialist. The leader and recog¬ nized authority in any line of human endeavor is, inevitably, one whose concentrated thought and observation have enabled him to hew his way to the light of Truth through darkening walls that to the mutable many are impenetrable, inscrutable. Through untold ages the casual millions moved and had their being on the same earth that we occupy to-day. The sun shone, stars twinkled, lightnings flashed, flowers bloomed, as they do with us. The same potential wonders of the Universe were omnipresent then as now. The same great primal forces of Nature existed, but there were none to read her portentous story,— no eye keen enough to pene¬ trate the great alembic of her mysterious workings,— no ear attuned to the delicate measure of her whispered world- secrets,— no mind, sensitized by the sweat of exhaustive scientific research, to read her riddles for the glory of man and his immeasurable benefit. The discovery of a New World awaited through slum¬ bering ages the thoughtful observations of a Columbus. Not until subjected to the profound scrutiny of a Copernicus were the old revolving heavens transformed into a new astronomy. The power of steam, crying in vain to all the myriads who had peopled the earth since creation, whispered IO PREFACE. into the attentive ear of Watt the secret that revolutionized mechanical industry. So electricity remained a thing of idle wonder, until the keen-observing Morse harnessed it as the time- and space-annihilating thought-messenger of man. To Linnaeus the leaves and ilowers were a perfect calendar, clock, and compass. Dropped from a balloon on any part of the earth, he could tell the exact location, the season, the precise hour of day or night. With a few dry bones to guide his sharpened mind, Cuvier was able to rebuild the body of a monster whose race had died before human records began. A slight aberration of planetary motion conveyed to the trained eye of Herschel intelli¬ gence of the existence of another member of our solar sys¬ tem in still remoter space. As hounds by means of a highly specialized physical sense track the unseen quarry to its lair, so was acutely specialized intellect able to achieve the unthinkable triumph of tracking this errant orb over its course of thousands of millions of miles, of measuring it and weighing it before human eyes had ever seen it! And so through the whole catalogue of human achieve- ment, it is the Specialist who has seen clearly where the multitude saw nothing, or saw but dimly. To him truly nature has been an open book. From the starry heavens he has unraveled deep mysteries of the spheres. From the rocks of the earth he has garnered its physical history. From the crumbling fossil he has learned the fascinating story of life on the earth, from protoplasmic cell to man. The gleanings of human history have taught him states¬ manship. And thus man has toiled his way upward from savagery to enlightenment. By constant and thoughtful exercise, the mind and hand have ever taken on new cun- PREFACE. I 1 ning and facility, whose fruitage becomes richer and more abundant with the accumulating ages. Witness the many wonderful discoveries and inventions that distinguish the nineteenth century beyond all that have preceded it. As in those large matters that touch life at its roots and reach out into the infinite, so in the ordinary affairs of daily life we are constantly in closest touch with the Specialist. He prepares our food, makes our clothes, constructs our houses. He teaches us at school, preaches to us, doctors us when sick. He frames our laws and administers them. It is as a Specialist in my chosen line of work that I have prepared this volume. I have not sought to make it pro¬ foundly scientific or punctiliously literary, but rather to present in a plain manner some facts drawn from forty years of continuous work in connection with the chirographic art, as teacher, author, editor, publisher, and professional exami¬ ner and witness. As my experience in the latter capacity covers over twelve hundred cases in which the genuineness of handwriting has been contested in courts of justice, not only in the American metropolis, but throughout the United States and Canada, also in England and France, the hope is indulged that the volume may be found of genuine use to handwriting investigators in promoting the ends of justice. No. 24 Post Street, San Francisco, Cal. D. T. A. INTRODUCTION. An artist long connected with one of the largest bank¬ note companies in America remarked to the writer that he could take a finished engraving— say, an elaborate bond or bank-note made by his company — and identify, infallibly, the work of every man who had a hand in its production, even though there might be a large number of different artists represented. More than that, he stated that if a score of the men with whom he had worked should each draw a straight line an inch long, under normal condi¬ tions, he could pick out the author of each particular line. This seems at first blush an extravagant statement, but probably it is true. It simply means that every man differs from every other man as to method, nervous force, brain propulsion, etc.; and that while these bits of line to the ordinary observer would be exact duplicates one of another, to the eye of one skilled in that business, and by long supervision familiar with the character and style of work turned out by various subordinates, one line would differ from another line in appearance even as one man differs from another. Of course, the establishing of identity on so slight a foundation presupposes normal conditions and circum¬ stances of execution. If those twenty men when they were making the lines knew that they would be subjected to scrutiny with a view to establishing identity, it is highly probable that each man could change his method sufficiently INTRODUCTION. 1 4 to make such identification impossible. One man’s habit might be to make a line with a quick free-hand stroke. Another might produce his by the aid of a ruler. It would require no great expert skill to distinguish a fairly radical dif¬ ference between two lines executed in such different manners. If A, whose custom it is to work free-hand, should employ a ruler for the purpose of deception and modify the force or rapidity of his habitual stroke, he might very well be able to bury his own identity; but even then the line thus abnor¬ mally made would be sufficiently different from a line normally made by B (whose natural habit, we will suppose, agrees with the assumed habit of A) to sufficiently differen¬ tiate the products. In a word, the trained expert eye, even on so slight a thing as a simple straight line, will detect certain peculiar¬ ities of motion, of force, of pressure, of tool-mark, etc., that in normal circumstances the result will stand for its author just as his photograph stands for him. Now, this being undoubtedly true within certain limitations, how more than incontestable must be the proposition to any rational man that if, instead of a simple undeviating pen-stroke, lines that run to curves and angles and slants, and shades and loops and ticks, and enter into all sorts of combinations, such as any specimen of handwriting must, however simple, bear inherent evidences of authorship that yield their secrets to the expert examiner as the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian monument do to a properly educated antiquarian. That is the beginning and the end of expertism in hand¬ writing. Some writer has well said that, “Every one should know something about everything, and everything about some- INTRODUCTION. 15 thing.” One who has been sufficiently observing, indus¬ trious, and acute of understanding to acquire a practical knowledge of things in general, and an exhaustive knowl¬ edge of some one thing in particular, is the ideal expert upon that particular thing. Who will presume that the opinion of such a man on his specialty is to be offset or disparaged by the opinion of another whose acquaintance with that particular thing is only general or casual—who has considered it as only one of things in general? The expert , then, is the man who knows. It is important to consider briefly the lines of study and experience calculated to confer the highest order of skill upon a handwriting expert. First —The study and practice of handwriting as a teacher in the constant observation, criticism, and sugges¬ tion to learners afforded by such an occupation. Second —The preparation of publications devoted to writing and other phases of penmanship involving the careful preparation of models for the engraver and the critical scrutiny of plate reproductions of such models. Third —The preparation of critical and technical, literary and scientific instructions for the student of penmanship. Fourth — The accumulated experience arising from previous examinations of disputed writing and the multi¬ plied precedents of court opinions, rulings, and the verdicts of juries in cases on which the expert has been previously employed. Fifth —The occupation of an engraver or lithographer where the frequent reproduction of handwriting, and especially autographs, is involved. The careful drawing of his models upon the plates prior to engraving and the i6 INTRODUCTION. critical comparison between models and reproductions lead to the drawing of nice distinctions of form and the detec¬ tion of delicate personal or individual characteristics. Sixth —The constant professional observation of hand¬ writing in any line of financial or commercial business tends to confer expert skill. It should be said here, however, that the average bank cashier or teller bases his opinions and his identifications generally upon the pictorial effect, without recourse to those minuter and more delicate points upon which the skilled expert rightly places the greatest reliance. Such testimony can not be compared for accuracy or value with that of the scientific investigator of hand¬ writing. It follows, then, that one who is endowed with more than ordinary acuteness of observation, and has had an experience so varied and extensive as to cover most of these lines, is likely to be best fitted for critical and reliable expert work. Opinions of eminent judges have differed widely respect¬ ing the reliance to be placed upon testimony founded upon expert comparisons of handwriting; but it should be remembered that those opinions have been no more varied than has been the character and qualifications of the experts by whose testimony they have been called forth. It is too true that very frequently persons have been allowed to give testimony as experts who were utterly without experience in any calling that tends to bestow the proper qualifications for giving expert testimony. Such witnesses have defamed their alleged profession. So some judges have failed to adorn the bench, and have been impeached; and it is not uncommon that lawyers have been disbarred on account of malpractice, and many more INTRODUCTION. 17 should have been from incompetency. In this work are presented a large number of cases, most of them illustrated, out of many hundreds which have come within the Author’s experience where important causes have hinged upon handwriting and have been determined chiefly by facts brought to light through the research of skilled experts. By illustrations much of the methods employed by the expert to discover and present the evidence of forgery in a clear and comprehensive manner to court and jury may be observed, and their true value estimated. In most of these cases the evidence was so conclusive as to admit of no reasonable doubt. The manner that personality enters originally into hand¬ writing, and becomes an unconscious and dominant habit which establishes an identity to every handwriting as abso¬ lutely as does physiognomy to the person, will be fully explained and illustrated. CHAPTER I. PERSONALITY IN HANDWRITING — WHAT CONSTITUTES PERSONALITY AND HOW IT COMES INTO WRITING SO AS TO DISTINGUISH THE WRITING OF ONE PERSON FROM THAT OF ANOTHER — NO TWO HANDWRITINGS CAN POSSIBLY BE IDENTICALLY THE SAME — HABIT OF WRITING — HOW FORMED AND HOW IT OPERATES TO DETECT AND ILLUSTRATE FORGED AND SPURIOUS WRITING — SCHOOL VS. ADULT-WRITING — NATIONS AS WELL AS INDIVID¬ UALS ARE DISTINGUISHED BY THEIR WRITING — ECCENTRIC PERSONS DEVELOP AN ECCENTRIC STYLE OF WRITING—EXAM¬ PLES OF ECCENTRIC AND OTHER STYLES OF WRITING — SEX IN WRITING. Assuredly Nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort of writing, as she has given a peculiar countenance, voice, and manner.— Disraeli. Coincident personality to such a degree as to lead to a mistaken identity of persons is very much more probable than that the handwriting of two individuals should so closely approximate each other as to be mistaken one for the other, especially when subjected to a careful analytical study and comparison by a capable expert. The features that go to make up the human physiog¬ nomy are but few when compared with the various forms of the fifty-two letters of the alphabet, large and small, not to mention their equally various relations, proportions, shades, spacing, initials, terminals, crosses, dots, etc. That all these various features when woven into the fabric of handwriting could be coincident throughout two habitual handwritings is absolutely impossible, the charac¬ teristic distinctions thus inevitably stamped upon one’s 20 COINCIDENT WRITING IMPOSSIBLE. writing are beyond the powers of numbers to enumerate. The number of different positions in which the twenty-six letters of the alphabet alone may be placed is 4,032,914,- 611,265,046,555,840,000, using the fifty-two letters (large and small), with their changed forms and other differences, as above stated; it will be obvious that the personalities of an habitual handwriting are quite beyond the power of enumeration to express. In nothing else that a man does and leaves of record is his very personality so interwoven and manifest as in his handwriting. Being the joint product of the mind and hand it reflects at once taste, judgment, industry, and the mental quality generally, as well as the manual dexterity, of its author. Writing is first acquired by thoughtful study and careful practice, and chiefly, at present, from engraved copies as models, analytically taught. It is therefore formal, stiff, and impersonal in exact proportion to the learner’s success in imitating his copy. Several learners practicing from the same models, under the instruction of a skillful teacher, will often acquire a school-hand so similar that were each pupil to write a line under the copy, one after the other, the entire writing would appear, to the casual observer, to be the work of one hand. But let these sev¬ eral learners enter upon the active duties of life, and practice their hands under the varying environments of their different employments, and at once a change is observed. First, the modifications are slight, then they become more and more pronounced, until ultimately each hand comes to be uncon¬ sciously evolutionized from the stiff, formal, analytic, and impersonal school-hand to a facile, natural expression of the writer’s mental and physical peculiarities, and stands for his personality, as does his physiognomy, against all the other writers in the world. From long-continued practice these individualities, which are numberless and chiefly unnoted, come to constitute a fixed and unconscious writing habit implanted in the muscles of the fingers and arm, rendering SCHOOL VERSUS ADULT WRITING. 21 them a machine that automatically performs all the phe¬ nomena of writing almost as arbitrarily as the typewriting machine, well-nigh unaided by the mind, which is occupied by its own functions of supplying the thought which the machine records. SCHOOL HAND. HABITUAL HAND. Thus it appears that what is designated as personality or habit in writing is the result of unconscious modifications of the original school-hand, not through any purpose of the mind or will, but directly from the unconscious force of personal peculiarities and environment conjointly operating through the mind and the muscles of the fingers, hand, and arm. It is therefore more a habit of muscle than of mind; hence its existence and character are mostly unknown to the writer, and cannot be so changed at the behest of the will as to destroy its identity. Adult Writing. —Any adult writer has only to refer to his own handwriting to observe the fact that his present 22 BASIS OF EXPERT EXAMINATION. writing differs as widely from that which he acquired at school as do his present features and personal appearance from those of his childhood. Every letter of the alphabet has changed in its form, shade, proportion, and in all its relations to other letters, when written in body writing, as well as the facility and grace with which it is executed,— and who can discover and enumerate all these changes ? Yet each one constitutes a distinct personality of the writer’s hand. These facts constitute the fundamental basis of scientific examinations and comparisons of forged or disguised hand¬ writing, and they may be formulated into three axioms. First —No writer can know all the innumerable charac¬ teristics of his own handwriting. Second —No one can observe and note all the habitual characteristics in the writing of another. Third —Were one conscious of all his own personalities and able to perceive all those of another writer, the hand at the mere command of the will cannot be so controlled as to entirely avoid the one and reproduce perfectly all the others. Force of habit will constantly inject the person¬ ality of the writer, while the unnoted personality of the imitated writing will be constantly omitted. When writing is in dispute and is submitted to an expert, he enters upon an exhaustive study and analysis to discover wherein these unconscious habits are absent and are substituted by others. In other words, he seeks to strip from the writing its garb of disguise as would a detective the robes of disguise from a person. The degree of certainty of an expert’s conclusion must, of course, be proportionate with his skill to detect, and the skill of the perpetrator to conceal his identity; but, as a rule, conclusions thus reached by a really skilled and honest expert are seldom wrong, and they constitute the strongest kind of circumstantial evidence. Obviously many causes conspire to stamp upon the UNTRAINED HAND VERSUS TRAINED MIND. 23 writing of different persons their own personality. One having short, thick fingers, the muscles of which, with those of the hand and arm, are hardened and stiffened by severe labor and are little exercised in writing, cannot pos¬ sibly write like one having long, flexible fingers constantly exercised in writing. Again, writing with the finger movement cannot produce the flowing, easy, and graceful style of one who calls the muscles of the wrist or fore-arm into use. The personal qualities, taste, judgment, disposition, and environment of the writer are also powerful elements in shaping his style. Much bad writing results from the effort of an untrained hand, striving to perform the impossible task of recording the thought of the highest-trained minds. A hand capable of writing well thirty words per minute endeavors to record the thoughts of a mind that can furnish two hun¬ dred words in the same time, and it often descends to pot¬ hooks and slurs, legible only from the context. 24 NICE CHARACTERISTIC DISTINCTIONS. The preceding cut is presented as a specimen of such writing, which is from a portion of a letter received at the office of the writer in ordinary correspondence. Probably no editorial writing has been more frequently the subject of comment than that of Horace Greeley, a specimen of which, here presented, happily illustrates our point; also, two other specimens, illustrative of highly per¬ sonal writing, by Peter Cooper, the well-known inventor and philanthropist of New York, and William Cullen Bry¬ ant, one of America’s greatest poets. Of course, the more radical and conspicuous peculiar¬ ities become, the more obvious will be the individuality and identity of the writing. It will sometimes happen that adults having no very determined or dominant charac¬ teristics, and who have written but little, and that under circumstances not sharply controlling their actions, will retain much of the style they acquired at school. In such cases there will be many coincident types of letters, and perhaps of forms as between their writing and that of others having learned from practicing after the same copies and under the same instruction, so much so that a casual observer may be betrayed into a mistaken identity of writ¬ ing, just as persons who bear a strong resemblance are often mistaken for each other. There may be a superficial likeness, even a striking one, in writing as in persons, yet there can be no positive iden¬ tity. What, in a general way, may appear to the casual observer to be the same, under the eye of those who are familiar from intimate acquaintance, or of an expert who is acute in discovering and judging of characteristic differ¬ ences, there will be manifest points of difference so radical as to make the lack of identity positive and unmistakable. As an instance, it was alleged that two writings were by the same person, because in each there were several coincident types of letters. For example, the “e” was made in the form of* the Greek letter “epsilon,” but upon a critical ^7 if G/frio tyfa/f. / /( /$£?: U \ S^Zs< / - f> ^ ° &&fc? • ( ^ { ^su£ K yiiy ^ ^ ^-TzL //“ // C/ __" v,.^V f yy V_ //L^ezet^ ^y^su.y^ r #>k:& //0 A^H ff — cA■■&, t sl^A ^/-c /%Wr jyuF A ^>w Q ceU w^r^w, iL Me n^Ay vm oiU^p.aJ^q ^ V ^- *JU-''t?b 7 -^^ ^igr / f#+ , ^f ^re^A-f^, u*^L*Ly&xrfus L-\*^s a^ U^{\aUAi^ id tAnr-d*' OtA — t/ldLs / ^L 4r*^b$\jus** r UA~' 0-' y jj— j &^.^- &0-v~oL ' 'b^t-^Tsyuj ^L^rv~l7&cr y.^'VyJj- &US t£j> ^JA£.^ 6U^ A--a-~^ &>jpt&teg &.Hkji'-eld— *UA<*strx } -c^Lf 'llti -a^r ^' (AZudL^ &~C*CJtLpLcttjtC) lSc£iZyp>ij ~€jd^ *J^ 't/bjexx^ *AC.^i^+yA^A^AA^ ryp^y / f''Vi^ltj / ^^Cusr 4 L~i ^y V Vtiir^ GENERAL VERSUS CHARACTERISTIC DISTINCTIONS. examination it was found that in the one instance the letter was made so that its upper portion was one-third the length of the letter, and was nearly a horizontal oval, while the point connecting the two parts pointed upwards at an angle of forty-five degrees, thus: that in the other writing it was so divided that the upper portion was nearly two-thirds the length of the letter, which began with a hook, and the connecting point projected downward, thus: (f ; so that while alike in type, they were, characteristically, very unlike. Among all the fourteen hundred millions of people who inhabit the earth no two are identically the same. No more are any two handwritings. Although resemblances may be striking, a perfect likeness of any two things does not exist. “ Alike as two peas ” is a trite saying; yet when two peas are scrutinized under the lens of a microscope differences of detail multiply well-nigh to the infinite. But it is urged against the identity of writing that the same person never writes twice exactly alike. This is true in the sense that a person’s handwriting varies as to its precise detail, but in its general habitual characteristics it is the same, as several peas may vary in size, color, smooth¬ ness and outline, yet inevitably and unmistakably retain every characteristic that identifies them as peas and distin¬ guishes them from pebbles or any other object of similar size and form. “Like, but oh! how different!” A fine or stub pen, haste or deliberation, good or bad health, sitting or standing, drunk or sober, may radically change the appearance and quality of writing, as may the condition of health or age change or impair the personal appearance of the writer; but it might as well be claimed that these abnormal circumstances make a new person as that they make a new handwriting. The pen in a palsied, drunken, or incensed hand may be erratic in its motion, but no more so than would be the motions of the feet and body PERSONALITY NEITHER TAUGHT NOR HINDERED. 29 from a corresponding cause. Each inevitably strives to perform its normal and habitual functions, and approximates doing so exactly according to the degree of the impedi¬ ment. It is sometimes urged by teachers and the press, as an objection to the use of engraved copy-books in our public schools, that from the uniform and impersonal character of the copies there is danger that pupils will acquire a style of writing so nearly alike as to eliminate the ordinary person¬ ality by which the writing of one person is distinguished from that of another; and under such apprehension some teachers have even sought to teach what they denominated “personal writing.” True personality in writing can neither be taught nor materially hindered by style of copy or effort of the teacher. If a teacher reflect but for a moment he must see that any peculiarity present in a copy could be only a copied form in the writing of the imitator. As we have shown, personality is not in the writing of the learner, more than is the matured face and form of the adult in that of the child. Each comes by evolution through time and circumstances, and teachers and others who are apprehensive lest all or many people should come to write alike, from any cause, might be equally apprehen¬ sive lest the same childish forms and features which they see in the schoolroom should remain unchanged through advancing years. The teacher need be concerned only in assisting the learner to acquire all the essentials of a good handwriting—mamely, good, legible forms, together with ease and grace of execution. Nor is the distinguishing personality of writing limited to individuals. The writing of the world is marked and varied in its idiosyncrasies as are the physiognomies and other peculiar race characteristics. Some years since I had occasion to prepare an elaborate testimonial to John W. Mackey from the employees of the Commercial Cable Company, and, when completed, pages 30 NATIONALITY IN HANDWRITING. were sent to the leading offices, for the signatures of the employees, three of which pages we have reproduced and here present as typical of the writing of three nationalities — English, American, and French. They may not be fairly representative, as it is quite probable that there is some intermingling of nationalities on these pages. ■7 & ' J . 5 ryicur FAMILY RESEMBLANCE IN WRITING. 33 The extensive and close observer distinguishes between nationalities by their writing as he does by speech, physi¬ ognomy, or any other race peculiarity. Even when one has learned to write another than his native language, the race-distinction remains to a perceptible degree. The writing of a German, Frenchman, or other foreigner who has learned to speak and write the English language will usually retain an idiocratic style as perceptible to the expert as the accent in his speech; and the one can be overcome or avoided no more easily than the other. Sometimes, too, there is a strong resemblance between the writing as there is between the persons and characteristics of different members of the same family. This resemblance very naturally results from coincident instructions, example, and hereditary family traits. These family resemblances are occasionally so great as to lead to mistaken identity of both person and writing, by persons of limited acquaint¬ ance, but not of either by intimate relatives or associates. In neither case can we conceive a complete and perfect identity to be possible. The skilled and observing accountant or correspondent will recognize the various handwritings of all associated in his house, as well as of its frequent correspondents, as readily and unerringly as he does their persons; nor can the identity of their handwriting be more effectively con¬ cealed by disguise than can the persons of the writers. It is also an observable fact that original and highly eccentric persons usually develop an equally original and eccentric handwriting. By eccentric writing we do not mean the well-nigh unintelligible hieroglyphics of such newspaper writers as Greeley and others, whose essentially bad writing has resulted more from the attempt to force an unskilled hand to perform the utterly impossible task of keeping pace with their rushing torrent of thoughts than from any real eccentricity of character. We refer to those whimsical, nondescript styles in which the writers utterly 34 ECCENTRIC PERSONS HAVE ECCENTRIC WRITING. ignore all system or example, and seem to defy alike all rules of art and nature by deliberately introducing forms and combinations which may be anything or nothing accord¬ ing to their position and the context, and which constitute as a whole a “ hand ” as grotesque and inimitable as the character of its author, and one which seems to say to the beholder, “This is my style,”—and very properly, for certainly it will enter into the brain of no other person to conceive of anything like it. We here present a few specimens of such writing, together with facsimile auto¬ graphs of those persons who have been publicly known, which will serve as illustrative examples: — jrf-TJig V)iy- 4 ** 11 i HIGHLY PERSONAL WRITING. 35 J yuvJiaMt tMjsuw," Sous a "kfiXCy faoM&A/naM. 1 1 U> ~ 6 Ckt. a. jsxu : lwf> l\&cu£ jzn&\ren£b fusn, j^-crm. gorM^ firo ^OA*". These autographs are certainly sui generis , and in their entire originality and defiance of prescribed rules of chi- rography are typical of their respective authors, who, in their careers, have been equally original and irrespective of the beaten ways of their grandfathers. As another example of the eccentric autograph — cer¬ tainly its writer has departed widely from the ways of her grandmother — we present the following: — 3 6 WRITING NOT MARKEDLY PERSONAL. “ It is,” in the words of another writer, “ a fine combi¬ nation ol masculine vigor and feminine caprice.” Authors ot such writing and autographs as above need have no fear of a mistaken identity, or of any considerable number of accidental coincidences between their own and any other “ sign manual.” Below are specimens of writing and autographs con¬ structed more in accordance with the prevailing standards of form, and not characterized by conspicuous personal¬ ities : — Such writing will occur in cases where persons of nearly equal skill have learned to write by practicing from the same copies, and whose hands have not subsequently changed by practice under widely different circumstances, or been dominated by strong peculiar personal traits. In such writing there will be many accidental coincidences of form and combination between that of different writers, and mistaken identity is liable except by those to whom the handwriting is thoroughly familiar, or from a somewhat expert examination. It is the peculiar eccentricities of habit in writing, as it is in the figure, dress, etc., in persons, which readily and certainly determine their identity. Persons of the same color, of medium stature, regular features, clothed in the prevailing fashion, present much the same appearance to the eye of a stranger, and on a slight acquaintance may easily be mistaken one for another. But persons highly exceptional in any of these respects will be recognized at sight. There can be no mistaking a black for a white man, a giant for a dwarf, or a cripple on crutches for a man on sound leg^s. Persons are never so DISGUISED HANDWRITING RETAINS ITS IDENTITY. T >7 identical in form, features, dress, habit, etc., as to be mis¬ taken by intimate acquaintances, and usually where a strong personal resemblance is apparent to strangers, it ceases to be so upon a greater familiarity. So, how¬ ever close the resemblance between the writing of dif¬ ferent persons may appear to the unfamiliar observer, the identity of each will not only be apparent at once to its author and others to whom it is familiar, but they will usually fail even to note a resemblance. Though writing be changed in its general appearance, as it easily may be by altering its slope or size, or by using a widely different pen, yet the unconscious habit of the writer will remain and be perceptible in all the details of the writing; and such an effort to disguise one’s writing could be scarcely more successful than would be an effort to disguise the person by a change of dress. In either case a close inspection reveals the true identity. Although it be a fact that writing ultimately becomes the automatic production of the hand, it is equally a fact that it does so as the pupil and agent of the mind; and in the molding process the peculiar qualities of its tutor and master enter unconsciously into its composition, and it becomes, as it were, a mirror of its creator — the mind. The truth of this assertion we will endeavor to illustrate by presenting facsimile autographs of a few persons whose mental characteristics are a matter of historical record, and will or may be known to all our readers. It is probable that the writing of no two Americans has more frequently been the subject of comment than that of Rufus Choate and John Hancock, whose portraits and autographs we present on the next page. The contrasts are equally striking, as between the per¬ sonal characteristics, physiognomies, or chirography of these gentlemen, Mr. Choate enjoying the reputation of being among the worst, as Hancock was among the best, writers of their times. 38 FITNESS OF AUTOGRAPH AND PHYSIOGNOMY. The hard, wiry, nervous, and intensely marked features of Choate, bespeak the brilliant though eccentric orator, jurist, and statesman, and are in full accord with his auto¬ graph. The portrait of Hancock, in its bold, open, and frank expression, is typical of what the biographer describes as “ a man of strong common sense and great decision of character, polished manners, easy address, affable, liberal, and charitable.” Could portrait, character, and autograph be in better accord ? As the companion autograph of Hancock’s, we present that of John Adams — PAINSTAKING AUTOGRAPHS. 39 who was also a compatriot of the stirring times of the Revolution, and a colleague in the Colonial Congress. Both were among the most earnest, bold, and fearless advocates of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams, in one of his fiery speeches in its favor, closed by fairly shouting “Independence forever!” and Hancock, after subscribing his autograph to the Declaration, which act might have become his death-warrant, remarked, “ The British Min¬ istry will not need their specs to see that.” The bold, strong, determined character of these men stands out in their autographs. In marked contrast to these, are the autographs of two of our great merchants and financiers : — Here we have men of affairs who have a care for details which enter as minutely and fully into their autographs as into their business. Between these autographs and the fol¬ lowing are contrasts as striking as were the character and missions in their authors. The latter are of a class of what might be termed par¬ liamentary autographs. Their authors indulge in none of the redundances of fantastic quirks and eccentricities so common to most classes of writers, the autographs seeming to possess a conscious dignity, which, like the greatness of their authors, is most complete without decoration. 40 PARLIAMENTARY AUTOGRAPHS. The autograph of Clay, in its concise, frank, open, and almost laconic style, most faithfully reflects the character of the great statesman, whose life was without equivocation, disguise, or reproach, and concerning whose opinions and purposes his countrymen were never in doubt. The autograph of his great contemporary, Webster, too, in its simplicity and dignity of style, is appropriate to the terse, vigorous, and unaffected style of America’s greatest political orator and statesman. The autograph of Lincoln is clear, bold, and utterly with¬ out affectation; while its quaint, honest dignity renders it thoroughly appropriate as the “ sign manual ” of “ Honest Abe.” In a contrast as marked as were the peculiar char¬ acteristics and attainments of the two men stands the deli¬ cately molded autograph of his great “ War Premier ” Seward. In its delicate construction of fine hair-lines, clear-cut shades, and almost microscopical proportions, is indicated that rare quality of mind which crystallized thought into felicitous phrases, and stamped him as the ablest statesman and diplomatist of his time. Probably no two American statesmen more resembled each other in their style of thought and expression than Seward and Alexander Hamilton, the latter the accomplished A CONTRAST OF AUTOGRAPHS. 41 aide-de-camp of General Washington, and subsequently Secretary of the Treasury under Washington’s administra¬ tion. In many respects the autographs of Seward and Hamilton also resemble each other. The autograph of Garfield is easy, flowing, and graceful, without redundancy or pretension. Nothing could be more in keeping with the scholarly attainments, graceful oratory, and unpretentious merit of its author. The autograph of General Grant is plain and simple in its construction, not an unnecessary movement or mark in it — a signature as bare of superfluity and ostentation as was the silent soldier and hero of Appomattox. In the autograph of R. E. Lee we have the same terse, brief manner of construction as in Grant’s. It is more antiquated and formal in its style, more stiff and what might be called aristocratic. Its firm upright strokes, with angular horizontal terminal lines, indicate a determined, positive character. In somewhat marked contrast with the two last-men¬ tioned autographs is that of General Beauregard, in that he indulges in a rather elaborate flourish, which is a national characteristic. 42 SEX IN HANDWRITING. Sex in Handwriting.— It would seem to be from a dif¬ ference, original and instinctive, that a boy delights in his hobby-horse and the girl in her doll; that the greater and more heroic things of life engage the attention of men, while women are led by their nature and instinct into the more circumscribed realm of social and domestic life. She ornaments her home and decorates her person quite beyond the inclination of man. She is punctilious as to the niceties and details of life; he is impatient of them. So in writing, she can omit no detail that catches her fancy more than she could omit to adorn her person with some dainty ribbon. It is thus that a woman betrays her sex in the fastidious detail of her writing. It will occasionally happen that some masculine woman will so closely approximate the plainness of male hand¬ writing as to challenge a sex identity, just as an occasional male “ Miss Nancy ” will manifest, in his writing, a feminine caprice to a degree that will destroy any sex distinction. It is therefore through the almost inevitable caprice and fancy touches of writing that an expert distinguishes between the writing of the sexes. o CHAPTER II. MOVEMENTS IN WRITING DEFINED AND ILLUSTRATED-STYLES OF WRITING : ANGULAR, SEMI-ANGULAR, ROUND-SHADED, UPRIGHT, AND BACK-HAND. Four movements are more or less employed in writing, — the finger, the combined finger and wrist, the combined finger and fore-arm, and sometimes a whole-arm move¬ ment is united with one or more of the others. With the finger movement the hand and arm rests upon the table, the motions of the writing being performed chiefly by the fingers. Finger-movement writing is usually shaded, slow, formal, and without dash or flourish, and is the most susceptible of forgery or imitation. In combined finger- and wrist-movement writing, the action of the muscles of the wrist chiefly supply the motion, and the writing is characterized by a considerably enlarged scope. It is less formal, and is written with facility and more or less dash. The combined finger and fore-arm movement is the most easy, rapid, and tireless of the movements, the motion coming chiefly from the action of the muscles of the fore¬ arm. On this movement writing is usually less formal and accurate than writing on either the finger or wrist move¬ ments, and requires very much more discipline to acquire or retain than do those movements. The whole-arm movement is employed in blackboard and other writing upon a very large scale. Many writers who make use of large, flourishy capital letters in their auto¬ graphs, or in displayed headings upon books or hotel 44 MOVEMENTS IN WRITING. registers, etc., make use of this movement. It is also the chief movement in “ flourishing,” which in earlier times cut an important figure in the chirographer’s art. The greater the freedom of movement in writing, the more difficult it is to forge or simulate. Writing and signa¬ tures which are slowly and laboriously written on a finger movement can be most easily and successfully imitated. It is exceedingly difficult for a person habitually writing by one movement to successfully imitate writing executed by another movement. One habituated to the finger move¬ ment cannot successfully forge the writing of a fore-arm writer. The fore-arm writer will be much more successful in imitating writing written with the finger movement. It is possible for a more skillful writer to descend to the low art of an unskilled writer, but is far less probable that the unskilled hand should ascend to a much higher scale of art than it has ever known or practiced. MOVEMENTS. STYLES OF WRITING. ANGULAR WRITING. (Combined fore-arm and finger movement, fore-arm predominating.) SEMI-ANGULAR WRITING. (Combined fore-ar?n and finger movement.) Qltrf# /s/ftr ROUND HAND, SHADED. (Finger movement.) r/i^ie/jaJs UPRIGHT WRITING. (Fore-arm and finger movement , finger predominating.) cXXxxxX 'Xjixx^cJnjirh Xy-Q^ p,OrcrY" yjcXrxxy rurf jCaxxiJ-'o- n_^exxW^ CO -^jj-OoCC dUcXAjOO^Z) LAFtXJx^ CAT ^-oc-cJ- tSo ■ Ln r ooLc_xx^>. BACK-SLANT WRITING. (Fore-cirm and finger movement.) \ CHAPTER III. WRITING UNDER ABNORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES— WITH THE LEFT HAND ■— BY PERSONS INTOXICATED, NERVOUS, ASSISTED, OR HYPNOTIZED — WITH PENCIL OR STYLOGRAPHIC PEN. The question is often raised as to the effect of any abnormal condition of a person upon his writing; for instance, writing with an untrained left hand, or while intoxicated, or in a hypnotic state, or by a paralytic or one infirm from old age, disease, or impaired mental or physical capacity from any cause. While the writer does not presume to speak as a specialist in all of the several departments in which these various peculiarities would be classed, he has observed the peculiar phenomena of writing executed under all these conditions, with the general result that under them all the hand, which from lifelong practice has come to write, as it were, automatically, through the sheer force of habit, continues, however changed the circumstances, to be dominated by the same old habits, and strives to write as before ; and its efforts will be modified to the degree, and in a manner, peculiar to the nature and extent of the difficulty under which it writes. That resulting from writing with the left hand is excep¬ tional from the fact that in the left hand a new and untrained agent is introduced to do the work of the old and habituated one; a joint mental and physical effort is there¬ fore required to contend with the difficulty. The mind pre¬ sents the old idealized model of writing, and engages its will and attention in the effort to instruct and impel its 4 8 WRITING WITH THE LEFT HAND. new agent to make the nearest possible approach to the habitual work of its former one; the new agent, the left hand, aspiring to the same model under the same tutelage, continues its striving to accomplish the same result, which it will more and more approximate as it gains control of the pen and consequent facility in its movements; and in all its stages, from its first awkward effort to ultimate skill and ease, there will be the old characteristic writing, the same as “Yankee Doodle” is “Yankee Doodle” whether performed by the greatest master or tortured by the merest tyro. Even were one to lose both hands, and write, hold¬ ing his pen in his teeth or between his toes, the writing would have a distorted resemblance to that written formerly with the hand. The writer has known several instances where persons accustomed to write with their right hand have, from some cause, substituted the left hand. In all cases where a simi¬ lar slant has been maintained, the writing of the left hand, as it came to be written with a facility approximating that of the right, has assumed a correspondingly close resem¬ blance. It is said that, late in life, Thomas Jefferson lost the use of his right hand to such a degree as to cause him to substitute his left hand for writing, and that, after a short time, writing with his left hand was scarcely distinguishable from that formerly written with his right. In the following cut are presented specimens written with the right and left hands by a young man who was to a considerable extent ambidexterous. Although the right hand was habitually used for writing and most other purposes, yet the left hand was used with considerable facility, as is manifest in the specimen here presented for comparison. It will be observed that the types of letters throughout both writings are the same, and that there is an evident effort to construct and relate the letters in the same manner ; this is specially noticeable in the autograph. RIGHT HAND 50 one’s writing characteristically the same. Below we present specimens of writing by General W. H. L. Barnes, a leader of the bar of San B'rancisco, Cal. Each of the specimens was written with an easy and rapid movement, and without hesitation, and is, therefore, an excellent vindication of the theory that however one writes, the prominent characteristics of his hand remain. The last specimen, if placed before a looking-glass, will present all the characteristics of the other two. In the following specimen, the three words to the left were written with the left hand ; their duplicates at the right were written with the right hand. The last two were o WRITING UNDER INTOXICATION. 51 written simultaneously with both hands by Mr. C. E. Cockey, at the head of the supply department of the Western-Union Telegraph Company, New York. Intoxication manifests itself in loose, vacillating lines that swing and stagger around the characteristic forms of the writer’s normal writing, much as do his legs and body along the way, in locomotion. Letters and words tend to begin and end in the same manner as in normal writing; habitual spacings of words and letters are distorted; shades tend to be in their habitual places, though more or less vacillating as to place and degree. The habitual mechanical arrange¬ ment is closely normal. Writing Impaired by Age or Infirmity.—A weak and infirm hand moves with a less erratic motion than under intoxication, but with a waving motion, and the words are more or less broken into letters and syllables. In palsied writing the lines are more or less zigzag, tend- 5 2 WRITING UNDER MUSCULAR DIFFICULTY. ing to change their directions on angles rather than curves; shades are abnormal and the writing broken. In the following cut is presented an excellent specimen of writing under extreme muscular difficulty. It will be observed that all the changes in the directions of the lines are on angles, in place of curves, or swings, as in the case of intoxication or weakness; also, that evidently the changes are at equal intervals of time, varying in distance, simply according to the rapidity of the motion of the pen. « ' p « (Tey.t ' t ? ,'$iLne2*Lia.uir € 4/LAn. flleyCctj/h a. v-* 5 6 ^ tvctfc/le. * cya. ^ cCshi(Z ) 98 HABITUAL AND DISGUISED FORMS IN CONTRAST. lines i, 4, 7, and 9, up-stroke beginning at base line con¬ necting with staff at top; corresponding letters in (2), lines 3, 4, and 6. The letter r at the beginning of the word in (1), line 4, is conspicuously large, beginning with a com¬ pound curve at the base line ; the same letter is in (2), lines 4 and 8. The interrogation point in (1), at the end of line 10, is the same as those of (2), in lines 7 and 8. The word “ the ” in (1), line 7, is characteristically the same as “ the ” in (2), line 6. These are but few of the many coincident characteristics that are present in the three genuine letters as compared with the four disguised. (3) From Genuine. 1 Cl 2 % f Z ft* • - - 2 2 ? ? > 1 ' • • • • t 9 In cuts (3) and (4) are collected and placed in juxtaposi¬ tion several examples of the more striking personalities as they appear in the genuine and disguised writing. In cut (3) are two kinds of J's. One made with two separate strokes, and another with one continuous stroke. At the very beginning of the disguised letter, cut (2), in the first line, is a J made with two strokes, while in the second line it is made continuously. HABITUAL AND DISGUISED FORMS IN CONTRAST. 99 Two different characteristic types of the same letter in two alleged different writings count very much in expert examinations, because, while it is not uncommon that two different persons fall into the habit of making one form of a letter approximately the same, it is very uncommon that they should each develop two highly personal forms alike for the same letter or combination. In line 2 of cut (3) are several capital D 's selected from the genuine writing; opposite are several selected from the disguised writing, and so on to the end of the cut. It will be found that the letters and words selected from the genu¬ ine writing are characteristically the same; yet while inter¬ mingled in the page of disguised writing their identity is so changed and obscured as not to be discernible except on close scrutiny and comparison. In their pictorial effect there is no observable resemblance between the genuine and the disguised writing more than between a white and a black man, yet mainly on expert tes¬ timony the identity of the anonymous writing was so very thoroughly demonstrated as to secure a large verdict as damages against the author for criminal libel. o o CHAPTER XII. CERTAINTY OF CONCLUSIONS REACHED THROUGH EXPERT COMPARI¬ SONS OF WRITING — MUST VARY IN DEGREE, WITH THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF EACH CASE — THE GENUINENESS OR UNGEN¬ UINENESS OF WRITING IS NOT DETERMINED BY ANY ONE THING, BUT BY A SERIES OF INSTANCES WHERE THE TRUE CHARACTERISTICS ARE PRESENT OR ABSENT, AS THE CASE MAY BE— EXAMPLES : A BANK CASE IN NEW YORK, AND THE BIRD CASE, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. Where a handwriting is brought into question, it is rare that any one thing can determine the point at issue. It is usually by a more or less extended series of things, the presence or absence of which creates the decisive prepon¬ derance of evidence. Of course, each case admits of a more or less certain con¬ clusion, according to its own peculiar circumstances. It often happens that there is such a deficiency in the char¬ acter or extent of the writing, either of the known or unknown, as not to furnish a satisfactory basis for study and comparison; that is to say, there are present too few of the real characteristics of either one or both of the writings to enable even a skilled expert to form a well-sustained opinion. Only a word, or paragraph, care¬ lessly scrawled perhaps with a pencil, may be brought in question, to be compared with other writing with pen and ink. Again, a long period of time may inter¬ vene between the date of the writings which are to be compared, in which the standard writing may have undergone material change, and sometimes the skill ILLUSTRATED BY PERSONAL PECULIARITIES. IOI of the forger is so great as to nearly baffle that of the expert. These circumstances, however, are the ex¬ ception. Some handwritings are characterized by few or no striking peculiarities that radically distinguish them from one another, and may be casually mistaken in their identity, while other writings consist of a continuous series of extravagant eccentricities such as to cause them to stand out as grotesque, unique, and unmistakable among other writings as would a dime museum freak among other persons. It follows that the personality of some handwritings, like some physiognomies, is more marked and unmistakable than that of others, and the more rare and excep¬ tional are the characteristics either of the person or of the writing, the less liable are accidental coincidences between them and others, or that any mistake can occur respecting their own identity. As these peculiarities mul¬ tiply, either as to writing or the person, the chance of their recurrence in another diminishes on a ratio far beyond the simple law of permutation. Suppose, for example, that among ten thousand persons there is one hunchback, one person minus a right leg, one person minus a left arm, one person with one eye, one person with a broken nose. To find one person having two of these peculiarities would require probably one hundred thousand people ; three of them, a hundred millions; four , a thousand millions, while one having all five might not be found in the entire fourteen hundred million people on earth. While it cannot be posi¬ tively alleged that no one person can possibly possess all these peculiarities, the improbability is so great as to invade the realm of the impossible. Precisely so it is in the comparison of a handwriting. As we have said, one peculiarity does not decide. It simply counts for what it may be worth ; two count not twice as much, but many fold more, and so on. By each added 102 THE THROWING OF DICE. peculiarity the strength of the evidence is multiplied far beyond the rule of geometrical progression ; and although a point may not be reached where it can be said that all of a series of like or different characteristics, as the case may be, could not possibly occur, the probabilities for or against the accidental recurrence of all the series is such as to jus¬ tify decisive judgment. Again, the degree of certainty may be likened to the throwing of dice. Double aces may be thrown once without comment. Thrown twice in suc¬ cession, there is an exclamation of surprise. Thrown three times, Whew ! Thrown four times, By Jove! Thrown five times, comes a shout of fraud, loaded dice, etc. Yet who can say it is impossible that double aces might not be thrown the fifth consecutive time; and having been thrown five times, w'hy not the sixth, seventh, and so on indefinitely? Yet who would not soon act decisively on the improba¬ bility ? It is sometimes alleged in disparagement of conclusions reached from comparison of handwriting that no one can be absolutely certain of anything he has not seen. If one sees the track of a horse, he knows that it was made by a horse and not by a dog. We do not see the earth revolv¬ ing upon its axis, but we know it does revolve. Indeed, eliminate from the knowledge of the world all that of which we can have no visual perception, and only a skeleton of what the world accepts and constantly acts upon would remain. Illustrative of the foregoing we herewith present a num¬ ber of facsimile signatures. The top one is the forgery ; the three following are the genuine standards used for comparison. The characteristic differences are indicated by numerals along the disputed signature, the series extending from one to thirty. The case which is presented by the accompanying exhibit was tried some years ago in New York. The First National Bank of New York brought suit against the First CASE ILLUSTRATIVE OF PROFESSIONAL FORGERY. IO3 National Bank of Trenton, N. J., to recover nearly five thousand dollars, on a draft having the disputed signature. The plaintiffs alleged its genuineness and produced several bank cashiers and presidents, who testified accordingly, while the Trenton bank officials defended on the o-round of o forgery. Strong circumstantial evidence tended to estab¬ lish the genuineness of the signature, while expert testi¬ mony against its genuineness was nearly unsupported, but the verdict was very properly for the defense. F OaGEO. 104 ANALYSIS OF WRITING. 1. The heavily shaded and nearly closed initial hook in place of one open and unshaded or absent in the genuine. 2. The more straight parallel lines forming a thinner loop to the C. 3. The lower, heavier, and better graduated shade in the down stroke of the C. 4. The more symmetrical main oval of the C. 5. The differently formed and unshaded inner oval. 6. The shortened stroke ol the IV with a sharp closed angle at the top. 7. The long, large blind loop at the bottom. 8 . The very round, full turn at the top of the last turn in the IV, and also its heavy shade and elevation above the base line. ✓ 9. The final, conspicuous, nice, artistic, angular finish to the IV, which strikes the staff of the h below the up¬ line that forms the loop, showing a break in the up-line of the loop. 10. In the disproportionate height of the h to that in genuine signature. 11. The parallel lines in loop of h. 12. The more heavily shaded and lifted staff of the h at its base. 1 1. The larger, more rounded second member of the h, and its high closing on the staff 14. The very large i and round turn to the base. 15. The formed loop of the t from a very short turn at its top, a sharply curved down-stroke crossing the up-stroke low down toward the base of the whole letter, above the base line. 16. The thin line and full loop of the e lines crossing close to its base and above the base line. 17. The disproportionate height of the t, e, and h. 18. The horizontality of the connecting line from e to the h and the wide space between the letters. CONTROVERTED BY A PLAUSIBLE FALLACY. IO5 19. The peculiar parallelism.of the top of the h and the shortness of its staff. 20. The peculiar obtuse angle and artistic and retouched shade in the finish of the h. 21. The peculiar manner in which the h connects into the t by a horizontal curve above the base of the e. 22. The conspicuous size of the loop of the e. 23. The very long turn connecting e to a. 24. The small double-looped a. 25. The horizontal connection of the a into the d. 26. The up-line of the d, which changes its direction on the staff of the d, showing that the pen was lifted at the point. 27. The very large symmetrical loop for the staff of the d. 28. The conspicuous and artistic shade of the down- stroke of the d. 29. The very large symmetrical oval formed by the ter¬ minal sweep of the d. 30. The long-extended, horizontal, and elevated terminal of the d. In addition to evidence adduced from the analysis as here given, were manifest under the microscope several instances where the forger, having failed in his first writing to pro¬ duce the desired form of shade, had retouched the lines in a manner unnecessary to, and inconsistent with, genuine writing. Any legible form serves the purpose of genuine writing, but not so to the forger, intent on reproducing an exact model. It is often sought, on a cross-examination of an expert, to overthrow the conclusion reached by such a comparison as is here represented, when there is a sufficient range of standard writing, by searching it for exceptional forms which approximate to one of those pointed out in the com¬ parison, and if one or more is found, it is argued that the conclusions reached from the comparison are thereby over- io6 THE BIRD CASE. thrown. The fallacy of this is illustrated by the supposition of the peculiarities of five persons being all present in one person, or in the dice-throwing, as if out of a hundred throws, all those of double aces should be counted as so many consecutive throws. The thing is to find present in any one known genuine signature all or any considerable portion of the exceptional peculiarities present in the single one in contest. The Bird Case. —Bird was convicted of forgery at Los Angeles in July, 1899. The trial attracted considerable attention from the press and the public. Bird was the private secretary of G. J. Griffith, an extensive and wealthy real-estate holder and dealer, and had the full confidence of his employer, being intrusted with the entire charge of the affairs of his office, as bookkeeper and cashier. Before detection, Bird had forged Griffith’s name to checks aggre¬ gating several thousand dollars, on which he had received the cash from the First National Bank of Los Angeles, where Griffith kept his account. Bird was well known at the bank where, as Griffith’s secretary, he frequently made deposits and procured cash on Griffith’s checks. The forgery was written free-hand, and in its general pictorial effect was a very close simulation of Griffith’s genuine signature; but as is inevitable to a free-hand ior- gery, certain peculiarities in forms of letters, their combi¬ nation and shade, were overlooked by the forger, and his own unconscious habit was injected into their places. Griffith threw out the checks, chiefly from his knowledge of not having signed checks for such amounts in favor of Bird at the time of their dates. The suspected signatures were submitted to A. \Y. Seaver, a well- known local expert, who decided them to be forgeries. Bird was indicted and brought to trial. He was ably defended by Ex-Judge Dillon of Los Angeles. The trial continued over two weeks. He had a powerful ally in the ILLUSTRATIVE OF FREE-HAND FORGERY. 107 bank which had cashed the forged checks, for there was pending a civil suit brought by Griffith against the bank for the recovery of the amount of the forged checks. It was alleged by Griffith that the aggregation of the forgeries was far greater than the amount of the checks which came into Griffith’s possession, as Bird, while acting as secretary, received all the returned checks from the bank, and thus had opportunity to destroy any that he had forged. At the trial the writer was called by the District Attorney to give testimony in the case. Herewith are presented cuts of five of the forged signatures, with an equal number of genuine. Along the first forged signature we have placed numerals from 1 to 16, indicating as many of the leading failures of the forgeries to present the proper characteristics of the genuine signatures. Photographs were placed in the hands of each of the jury, while their differences were pointed out and illustrated upon a blackboard, thus enabling the jury to exercise their own vision and judgment as to the truthful¬ ness and value of the reasons presented to sustain the expert’s opinion that the signatures were forgeries. 1 calls attention to the more formal and horizontal start of a more curved up-stroke to the G. 2 notes the more round, shaded, horizontal, and symmet¬ rical turn at the center of the G. 3 notes the more angular and heavy shades at the top of the/. 4 notes the larger, more symmetrical lower loop to the /. 5 notes the more extended and symmetrical upper loop to the G. 6 notes a right curve at the top of the second member of the G, which is the reverse of the genuine. 7 and 8, taken together, represent the ri in such form and relation as to form a letter u, while in the genuine it would be yi. 9 represents a low, round, dishing shade at the bottom of the ff. io8 ANALYSIS OF WRITING. io and 11 represent a heavy shaded right curve as an initial to the which letter is in the form of an e as against an i with a straight unshaded initial, while the letter has an open angle at the top. ANALYSIS, CONTINUED. 109 12 represents a t with a closed or looped staff, as against an open and pointed staff in the genuine. 13 represents the very round, shaded turns at the base of the i and t. 14 notes the sharp turn at the base of the last part of the letter h , which sweeps upward and back so as to serve as a cross to the t. The terminal and last stroke of the h presenting the form of lo as against the broad turn at the base and high sweep in the genuine. 15 refers to the punctuation points, which in the forgeries are conspicuously large, and are on or above the base line, while they are smaller and below the base line in the genuine. 16 notes the large, high dots to the z’s as against the smaller and lower-down dots in the genuine. Many other minor differences were pointed out to the jury. As was stated by the expert to the jury, while no one of these variances might be sufficient to sustain the allegation of forgery, such a long series of variances from Mr. Grif¬ fith’s habit of writing, with marked uniformity running through a number of disputed signatures, constituted the most conclusive proof of forgery. Taken as groups, the forgeries are as consistent as a family as are the genuine, but no one of the signatures in either group could be a consistent member of the other family. CHAPTER XIII. WHY EXPERTS DIFFER IN THEIR OPINIONS—NOT ALL WHO GIVE TESTIMONY AS EXPERTS ARE QUALIFIED TO DO SO—OFTEN THROUGH THE SEEKING OF ATTORNEYS, INCOMPETENT OR MER¬ CENARY WITNESSES ARE EMPLOYED AS EXPERTS TO DISPARAGE THE TESTIMONY OF SKILLED AND HONEST EXPERTS. Not infrequently it is pointed out, with a view to dis¬ parage expert evidence, that experts radically disagree in their testimony,— one appearing on one side of a case and one on another,— and from this it is argued that such tes¬ timony is of slight value. A moment’s serious considera¬ tion of this contention should be sufficient to establish its unfairness, and the absurdity of the point of view. In the first place there are experts and “experts.” “ As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, and curs, cleped all by the name of dogs.” The court has a right to pass upon the qualifications of an expert witness, and very properly decides such questions with the broadest possible latitude. A man who has devoted a long life to the scientific investigation of a par¬ ticular subject is permitted to testify as an expert precisely upon the same plane as a man who can swear that he is familiar with a particular signature by reason of having observed it a few times on a bank check. Apart from this, it is not difficult to imagine that the inducement for dis¬ honest testimony in cases Involving large sums of money (as a large proportion of forgery cases do) often consti¬ tutes a very seductive bait to alleged “experts ” with more or less elastic consciences. But wholly apart from any consideration of mercenary WHY EXPERTS OPPOSE EACH OTHER. I I I motive, impropriety, or ignorance, is it in any measure unreasonable that on any conceivable question of fact men who are both skillful and honest are liable to disagree on one or another point? In most cases, where expert hand¬ writing testimony plays an important part, it is practicable to produce genuine and undisputed handwriting in amount sufficient to afford a proper comparison on all or practically all the important points involved. In such cases, assuming both skill and honesty, there is really no ground for radical differences of opinion in expert testimony. Yet there are cases in which it is difficult, or it may be impossible, to secure proper standards of comparison—-cases where the forgery appertains to a single signature, or even a single word, and it may be that the forger is not even suspected. Assuming these conditions, and adding to them a superior degree of skill on the part of the forger, there is presented a case that, while it may not actually deceive the expert, may render it very difficult for him to seize enough impor¬ tant points to make his exposition conclusive to the lay minds of a jury. Indeed, such cases may present points pro and con so delicate and shadowy in their nature that men of fairly equal skill may differ in their conclusions with respect to them. But who shall lay this up as an argument against the worth of expert testimony? There is no calling in life, however intellectual or advanced or profoundly scientific, in which men of undoubted integrity do not differ some¬ what, not only in opinions, but on questions of pure fact. Eye-witnesses to ordinary occurrences, people whose veracity is beyond reproach, often differ as to exact details as to what took place. To make my contention in this matter absolutely clear, we will take it for granted that a man would recognize an intimate friend when meeting him on the street. This he does not only by a likeness of his friend (which includes his carriage and gestures), but also by the apparel which has become identified with him. Now, if the friend should I 12 AN ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE. radically change his style of apparel — say, from the usual dress of an American citizen to the national costume of a Turk or Hindoo — he would be identified with much less readiness, and it is not at all improbable that he might be passed on the street without recognition. In other words, many of the points of identification would have been con¬ cealed ; yet a fair, square look at the face would doubtless penetrate even this disguise. Now, suppose that instead of meeting this friend face to face on the street, he should be seen in this disguise at a distance of one or two blocks or more. The probability of identification would be greatly lessened. Even at a dis¬ tance beyond the point where a glance at his familiar features might dispel the masquerade, it is quite conceivable that some habit of gait or gesture might betray the real identity. But after all there comes a point of remoteness where neither appearance nor gesture would be sufficiently marked to tell any definite story — a point where distance would obliterate familiar lines and where even without any unusual disguise no man could swear with positiveness that the one seen was his friend. It sometimes happens, also, that experts disagree because of circumstances shaped by designing and tricky attorneys. A case in point was where the question at issue was as to the identity of five entries of alleged fictitious names, with residence, upon a hotel register. An expert was called to prove the identity of this writing by comparison with known writing. For this purpose he used for standards several long letters and superscriptions upon envelopes, which pre¬ sented material in extent and kind sufficient to enable an expert to gain a full understanding of the practical habit of the writer. Obviously, this was precisely the kind of material proper for comparison with that in question, in the form of a fictitious name and address, which bore little evi¬ dence of attempt to disguise, it being freely written ; while, upon the other hand, experts were called to deny this OFTEN THE FAULT OF ATTORNEYS. TI 3 identity from a comparison of the fictitious entries in disguised writing simply with business autographs of the alleged writer signed upon checks. In the range of writing presented upon the one hand was every letter and combination, many times over, that was represented in the fictitious names and address, while the check signa¬ ture was not only monagrammic in its character, but pre¬ sented few of the letters and none of the combinations presented in the writing in question, and hence failed to present adequate and proper material for compari¬ son, and any expert forming an opinion from such a com¬ parison would be very likely to be in error, as proved to be the fact in this case, from subsequent admissions of the person charged with the writing. Another, and the most frequent cause of contradictory opinions of experts, is found in the persistent effort of over-zealous or mercenary attorneys. There have been few instances where skilled and honest experts have been called to sustain a just cause, that opposing attorneys have not persistently sought some one or more persons, usually as many or more than are called on the adverse side, who can qualify before the court as experts to contradict the testimony given by those employed’upon the other side, and frequently, in desperate cases, the more mercenary, incompetent, and ridiculous these witnesses may be made to appear, the better they serve the purpose for which they were called, namely, the bringing of the whole idea of the expert testimony under ridicule and contempt, and thus destroy that which tends to reveal the truth, from which crime can never profit. And then, with ridicule and epithets, the attorney appeals to the jury against this nefar¬ ious sort of testimony ; here, “ as you gentlemen of the jury can plainly see,” is one set of hired experts who say it is, and another set, with equal positiveness, say it isn’t. What is such testimony worth ? It often happens that persons are permitted to testify as TRICKS OF ATTORNEYS. I 14 experts who are without valid claims to being experts. Because a man is a writing-master, an artist, an engraver, or a bank-teller, does not by any means make him an adept in discovering and explaining forgery. And the assumption that ail these classes of persons are experts, and permitting them to qualify as such, is responsible for much of the unfavorable comments by courts and the press upon the uncertain and contradictory character of expert testimony. It is a trite saying among the legal fraternity that “an attorney with no case ” abuses the witness. Especially are expert witnesses the object of their wrath in desperate cases. By denouncing experts as hired perjurers who tes¬ tify for pay, etc., unscrupulous attorneys frequently endeavor to divert the jury’s attention from the real points at issue and to create prejudice that will operate in their favor. Of course, it behooves the witness to preserve an unruffled demeanor; and if he conducts himselt properly, in nine cases out of ten, the unwarranted attack upon him will prove a boomerang to the attorney. It is well to remem¬ ber, too, in this connection that the lawyer with a bad case has no use for a skilled and truthful expert. Another trick often resorted to by unscrupulous attorneys in charge of a case that has been riddled by expert testi¬ mony, is to introduce in rebuttal one or more alleged experts to swear just the other way. P'or this purpose, “ any old witness ” wfflo can possibly qualify by reason of having taught writing-school, or having seen the principal in the case actually write, or having handled his writing, is a good enough witness, and the more of that sort they can introduce the better it serves their purpose—-the obvious aim being to perplex the jury, and discredit expert testi¬ mony. Granted an intelligent lawyer on the other side, however, with even an ordinarily intelligent jury, and efforts of this kind are not likely to cause a miscarriage of justice. CHAPTER XIV. INSERTED SHEETS IN DOCUMENTS — ADDED OR CHANGED ENTRIES IN BOOKS OF ACCOUNTS —INK AND PENCIL ERASURES—-IDEN¬ TIFICATION OF TYPEWRITING. It is not an uncommon occurrence that wills and other public documents are changed by the insertion of extra or substituted pages, thereby changing the character of the instrument. Where this is suspected careful inspection of the paper should be made— first , as to its shade of color and fiber, under a microscope; second , as to its ruling; third , as to its water-mark; fourth , as to any indications that the sheets have been separated since their original attachment; fifth , as to the writing — whether or not it bears the harmonious character of the continuous writing, with the same pen and ink, and coincident circumstances, or if type-written, whether or not by the same operator or the same machine. It would be a remarkable fact if such change o were to be made without betraying some tangible proof in some one or more of the above enumerated respects. Books of accounts are often changed by adding fictitious or fraudulent entries in such spaces as may have been left between the regular entries or at the bottom of the pages where there is vacant space. Where such entries are sus¬ pected, there should be at first a careful inspection of the writing as to its general harmony with that which precedes and follows, as to its size, slope, spacing, ink and pen used, and if in a book of original entry, the suspected entry should be traced through other books, to see if it is prop¬ erly entered as to time and place, or vice versa. I f a sus- ALTERED BOOKS OF ACCOUNT. I 16 picious entry is found in a book of subsequent entry, it should be traced and verified in every respect through the books of previous entry. Such an examination will rarely fail to determine the integrity or otherwise of any suspected entry. The writing of such entries is likely to differ from the adjacent writing in size, slope, spacing, facility, and shade of ink. When books are fraudulently made up, many entries, and even pages, are likely to be written continuously at one writing without the customary change of pen and ink or their change of condition ; and hence the constantly vary¬ ing conditions and circumstances of the writer, which must be manifest as between entries written from time to time according to the exigencies of business, will not appear. The books, too, will not show the soil and wear and tear necessarily incident to the constant and frequent handling in making daily entries and the frequent references neces¬ sary in business. Suspected books skillfully examined upon the above-mentioned points must certainly betray unmis¬ takable evidence ot fraud if it exists. Ink and Pencil Erasures. — It is probable that ink erasures are more frequently made with a sharp steel scraper and ink-erasing sand rubber than otherwise. By these methods the evidence is— first , the removal of the luster or mill-finish from the surface of the paper; second, the dis¬ turbance of the fiber of the paper, manifest under a micro¬ scope ; third, if written over, the ink will run or spread more or less in the paper, presenting a heavier appearance, and the edges of the lines will be less sharply defined; fourth , if erasure is made on ruled paper, the base-line will be broken or destroyed over the scraped or rubbed surface ; fifth, the paper, since it has been more or less reduced in thickness where the erasure has been made, when held to the light will show more or less transparency. When era¬ sures have been thus made, the surface of the paper may INK AND PENCIL ERASURES. II 7 be resized and polished, by applying white glue, and rub¬ bing it over with a burnisher. When thus treated it may be again written over without difficulty. When erasures have been made with acids, there is a removal of the gloss, or mill-finish; and there is also more or less discolora¬ tion of the paper, which will vary according to the kind of paper, ink, and acid used, and the skill with which it has been applied. If the acid-treated surface is again written over, the writing will present a more or less ragged and heavy appearance, if the paper has not been first skill¬ fully resized and burnished. It is very seldom that writing can be changed by erasure so as not to leave sufficient traces to lead to detection and demonstration through a skillful examination. Upon hard uncalendered paper erasures by acid when skillfully made are not conspicuously manifest, nor when made upon any hard paper which has been “ wet down ” for printing, since the luster upon the paper would be thereby removed, and, so far as the surface of the paper is con¬ cerned, there would be no further change from the applica¬ tion of the acid. This applies to a wide range of printed blank business and professional forms. Identification of Typewriting.— Since typewriting has come so generally into use, the question often arises as to the identity of writing by different operators as well as that done on different machines. This may usually be done with considerable degree of certainty. Different operators have their own peculiar methods, which differ widely in many respects,— in the mechanical arrangement, as to loca¬ tion of date, address, margins, punctuation, spacing, sign¬ ing, as well as impression from touch, etc. The distinctive character of the writing done on different machines is usually determined with absolute certainty. With most machines there are accidental variations in alien- ment. Certain letters from use become more or less I 1 8 IDENTITY OF TYPEWRITING. imperfect, or become filled or fouled with ink. It is highly improbable that any one even of these accidents should occur in precisely the same way upon two machines, and that any two or more should do so is well-nigh impossible. It is equally certain that all the habits and mannerisms of two operators would not be precisely the same. A careful comparison of different typewritings in these respects can¬ not fail to determine whether they are written by the same operator or upon the same machine. It should be remem¬ bered that writing upon the same machine will differ in all the respects mentioned at different stages of its use and condition. CHAPTER XV. THE FREQUENCY OF FORGERY — LARGELY AGAINST ESTATES—SEV¬ ERAL INGENIOUS AND INTERESTING CASES CITED AND ILLUS¬ TRATED-THE FULLER CASE, IN NEWPORT, VERMONT—THE MISER RUSSELL CASE, IN NEW YORK CITY-A FORGED NOTE AGAINST THE JACOB ERWIN ESTATE, JERSEY CITY, N. J. — FORGED NOTES AGAINST THE GILLESPIE ESTATE, WARSAW, N. Y. Few persons outside of the legal fraternity are aware of the frequency with which litigations arise from one or another of the many phases of disputed handwriting; doubtless most frequently from that of signatures to the various forms of commercial obligations or other instru¬ ments conveying title to property, such as notes, checks, drafts, deeds, wills, etc. To a less extent the disputed portions involve alterations of books of account and other writings, by erasure, addition, interlineation, etc., while sometimes the trouble comes in the form of disguised or simulated writings. A disproportionately large number of these cases arise from forged and fictitious claims against the estates of deceased people. This results, first, from the fact that such claims are more easily established, as there is usually no one by whom they can be directly con¬ tradicted ; and secondly, for the reason that administrators are less liable to exercise the highest degree of caution than are persons who pay out their own money. Over eighteen hundred cases of questioned writing in its various phases have come under the inspection of the writer within the past thirty years, and over twelve hundred have been liti¬ gated in courts of justice. I n some instances these claims rest I 20 FREQUENCY OF FORGERY AGAINST ESTATES. upon the alleged genuineness of a single signature ; in others, where it was necessary to show some peculiar consideration for the claim, whole series of papers and letters have been forged, sometimes simply in the disguised hand of the forger, then again in the simulated style of other persons. In one case with which the writer is familiar a note for $10,000 was presented against the estate of a wealthy bachelor by a widow, who alleged that the note had been given in consideration of her marriage engagement with the deceased, which only failed of consummation through his unexpected death. In vindication of her claim she pro¬ duced numerous letters, couched in terms of endearment, which she alleged she had received from him prior to and during their engagement. These letters, all but two of which related to purely business transactions, were demon¬ strated by experts to have been forged simulations of his writing by the claimant, as was the signature to the note, the body being confessedly in her own writing. As another instance, a woman presented a claim for some $30,000 against the estate of a millionaire, for money alleged to have been placed in the hands of the deceased some years before for investment and safe-keeping. As vouchers for her claim she produced a receipt and contract, alleged to have been drawn by her lately deceased attorney, and signed by the testator, setting forth explicitly the terms of payment of principal and interest. The executors of the estate also received through the mail a long series of letters, purporting to have been written by several different unknown parties, tending to support this claim against the estate. The receipt, contract, and all the letters, together with several letters admittedly written by the claimant, were placed in the hands of the writer for examination and com¬ parison, when it was demonstrated that every line of the writ¬ ing in the letters, receipt, and contract, as well as their signa¬ tures, were written by the claimant in a forged or disguised hand, and that the whole claim was a very skillful fabrication. TIIE FULLER CASE. I 2 1 It transpired from the testimony in the case that the claimant had for quite a period of her life been a profes¬ sional teacher of writing, and that subsequently she gained a livelihood by writing novels. Thus the romancer and artist conspired in a most ingenious scheme of forgery. In all instances where a forgery extends to the manufac¬ turing of any considerable piece of writing, it is certain of being detected and demonstrated when subjected to a skilled expert examination; but where forgery is confined to a single signature, and that perhaps of such a character as to be easily simulated, detection is ofttimes difficult, and expert demonstrations less certain or convincing. Yet it is the writer’s experience that the instances are rare in which the forger of even a signature does not leave some uncon¬ scious traces that will betray him to the real expert, while in most instances forgery will be at once so apparent to an expert as to admit of a demonstration more trustworthy and convincing to court and jury than is the testimony of witnesses to alleged facts, who may be deceived, or even lie. The unconscious tracks of the forger, however, cannot be bribed or made to lie, and they often speak in a language so unmistakable as to utterly defy controversion. Such a case was that of the forgery against the estate of Warren Fuller, tried not long ago at Newport, Vermont, where a paper had been presented to the executors of an estate purporting to be signed by the testator, in which he promised to pay several obligations, of some twenty-five years’ standing, and which were long since then barred by the Statute of Limitations. This paper was alleged to have been signed by the testator only a short time before his death. The claim was disallowed by the executors on the ground that it had been paid, and also from a disbelief in the genuineness of the signature it bore. The claimant appealed from the decision of the executors, and the case was tried in the County Court. That the reader may bet¬ ter appreciate the appended synopsis of the court proceed- 12 2 THE FULLER CASE. ings, compiled from the report of the Newport Express- Stclndard of February 15th, we reproduce the signature to the renewal paper, together with three other admittedly genuine signatures, which were used as standards for com¬ parison. It was set up in behalf of the plaintiff that the paper in dispute was signed in the public office of the American House, Montpelier, Vt., on the fifth day of June, 1884, in the presence of numerous witnesses. J. W. Smith testified that he was present on this occa¬ sion. Fuller spoke to him, and said : “ I am doing what few men would. I am renewing some obligations which Henry and I have carelessly allowed to outlaw.” Fuller immediately sat down, and reading over a paper which was handed him by Rowell, the plaintiff, signed it. Witness noticed the paper at the time, and fully identified the docu¬ ment in dispute as the same. James M. Kent, a writing-teacher for more than ten years, corroborated Smith on every point. He had for years lived at the American House, and had frequently acted as clerk, heading the hotel register. A circumstance STRONG DIRECT TESTIMONY. I23 that helped to fix the date of the signing in his mind was that on the day in question (June 5, 1884,) the plaintiff Rowell called his attention to an error in the register head¬ ing,— it appearing June 5, 1885, instead of 1884,— where¬ upon witness altered the figure. (The register being put in evidence showed that the alteration had been made.) Witness saw Rowell write a paper on this occasion and hand it to Warren Fuller, who, having read it over, affixed his signature and returned it. He examined the paper in dispute and identified Fuller’s signature. He also pro¬ duced his private diary, in which the last entry, under date of June 5, 1884, was “Saw Warren Fuller,” etc. A. J. Burnham testified to substantially the same state of facts, positively identifying the paper in question. In the same line was the testimony of Joseph D. Clogston and L. L. Durant, a lawyer, who had done business for Rowell. Both of them clearly remembered seeing the paper written and signed in the office of the American House, as testified to by other witnesses. Besides these five witnesses, swearing positively to having seen a paper written by Rowell and signed by Fuller, at a certain time and place (which paper they fully identified in the document upon which the suit was brought) the plain¬ tiff introduced several other witnesses who testified that they had heard Fuller say he intended making such a paper to Rowell, and to other facts tending to corroborate the plaintiff’s claim. Against this mass of direct testimony, three witnesses took the stand for the defense, to say that they had been with Warren Fuller on the day of the alleged signing, and did not know of his going to the American House. The possibility of Fuller’s having gone to the hotel and executed the paper in question without the knowledge of these wit¬ nesses was fully established on cross-examination. A book known as the “ Marble-Book,” containing con¬ secutive acounts of Fuller’s business as a marble-worker 124 IMPEACHED BY AN INK TEST. from 1870 to 1884, in his own hand, was introduced to establish the character of his handwriting-. Other witnesses <_> familiar with Fuller’s writing were called to establish the genuineness of certain signatures, to be used as standards. Kent, the writing-master, had sworn that the signature and papers were written with the same ink as the entries upon the hotel register. A chemical test made by the author of this book in the presence of the court and jury determined the inks to be very different. Under the test one ink was removed, the other simply turned red. Kent had lied. By referring to the foregoing cut, it will be observed that the IV and F in the questioned signature are quite different from those in the standard signatures. By reference to the daily entries in Fuller’s writing in the “ Marble-Book,” during the previous fourteen years, it appeared that some ten years prior to the date of the paper in suit Mr. Fuller habitually made letters of that type. It also appeared by Rowell’s testimony that it was about that time that the obligations alleged to have been renewed were con- tractecl, and that Rowell had become possessed of Fuller’s signature. By the expert comparison it was shown that the signature in question was not only a forgery, but that Rowell had unwittingly used for a copy a signature written by Fuller fourteen years prior to the alleged signing of the renewal paper; and furthermore, that the questioned signa¬ ture was forged by Rowell. By again referring to it in the cut herewith presented it will be observed that the final strokes of the n and r sweep far below the base-line. In a large number of Fuller’s genuine signatures and hundreds of pages of his writing in the “ Marble-Book,” no final strokes swept below the base-line, while in the renewal paper, confessedly written by Rowell, they were frequent. The jury immediately rendered a verdict for the defense, and pronounced the signature in question to be a forgery. All the principal witnesses and Rowell were indicted, Rowell for forgery and perjury, and the others for perjury. CONCLUSIVENESS OF EXPERT EVIDENCE. 1 2 5 Durant, the lawyer who was supposed to have concocted the scheme, was found dead in his room the morning of the day set for his trial, supposedly a suicide. The others, through haws in the indictments and other technicalities, escaped trial. The Erwin Case. —Another interesting and important case was that of a forged note for $4,000 against the estate of Jacob Erwin, which was tried before Vice-Chancellor Van Fleet, at Jersey City. The note was presented to the executor by a woman who alleged that it had been pre¬ sented to her by Mr. Erwin just prior to his death. On being disallowed by the executor, suit was brought for its collection. When submitted by the executor to the writer for examination, he pronounced the signature to be a for¬ gery, the body of the note being confessedly in the hand¬ writing of the claimant. It was observed that while the alleged signature bore a close resemblance in form to Mr. Erwin’s genuine writing, it was not a good imitation of his signature. Besides, in its drawn, hesitating, and tremulous lines it did not properly represent his ordinary and natural facility of movement. D uring the trial the attorney for the claimant put into the case, as a standard for comparison, a receipt, the body of which was written by Mr. Erwin, and which had been in possession of the claimant. In the body of the receipt Mr. Erwin had written his name not as a signature, but as body-writing. On inspecting this writing, it was at once apparent to the expert that the name as written in the receipt had been used as a copy for the forged signature to the note, and had been transferred by a tracing, thus giving an outline so perfect that, when superimposed one upon the other, one outline only was visible. The forger evidently did not know, or had overlooked, the well-known fact that with nearly all writers an autograph, from its more fre¬ quent writing and for a special purpose, becomes more spe- 126 AUTOGRAPH VERSUS BODY WRITING. cialized and monogrammic in its character than are the same words when written merely as body-writing. These facts were made so apparent by the expert that the Chancellor, turning to the plaintiff’s attorney, said, “ Do you desire to continue this case further? ” The attor¬ ney replied that he did not, whereupon the Chancellor immediately pronounced the signature a forgery. TWO LINES FROM THE RECEIPT, FROM THE BODY OF WHICH THE SIGNATURE TO THE LINES WAS TRACED. FORGED. Miser Russell Case. —Another and more recent case was-that of Miser Russell, who was for many years a printer in New York, and at the time of his death left about $30,000 deposited in various savings banks. He was known among his friends as a bachelor, and he had fre¬ quently said he had no relatives living. So far as his friends and acquaintances knew, this was the fact; but immediately upon his death, a lawyer appeared representing a woman residing- in Michigan, who laid claim to Russell’s estate on the ground of being his daughter. To sustain this claim she produced several letters which she alleged she had received from him at intervals during several years and one just previous to his death, which were addressed to her as “ My Dear Daughter." These letters were submitted to the writer tor compari¬ son with the genuine writing of Mr Russell, to ascertain A CLEVER SCHEME OVERDONE. I27 whether or not he had written them. They were pro¬ nounced and proven to be forgeries, thus disapproving the claim, and the $30,000 went into the public treasury, as is the case of estates left by persons who are without heirs. A Clever Scheme. —Some three years since the writer was called to Warsaw, in the western part of New York State, to examine several notes which had been presented to the executors of a large estate, under circumstances that had awakened suspicion as to their genuineness. Upon a careful examination and comparison of the handwriting in the body and signatures of the notes with that of the tes¬ tator, it was very apparent that the notes in question were forgeries. The circumstances attending the discovery and presentation of the notes were indeed romantic. It seems that the testator, who had been a farmer and speculator, left an estate valued at about $200,000. The nearest of kin were nephews and nieces, among whom, after leaving several legacies, the estate by the will was to be divided equally. For many years there had been employed as housekeeper by the testator a bright young woman who had frequently been called upon by him to do writing and not unfrequently at his request to sign papers for him. There was also a hired man upon the farm, who finally married the young woman, both continuing to be servants of the testator until his death, and to each of whom he willed $1,000, besides $500 to each of their several children. It would seem that the entire family had become, as it were, pets of the old gentleman. Time passed on, and some two years after the decease of the testator the husband called upon the execu¬ tors and presented a note for quite a sum of money, alleg¬ ing as his reason for its possession, that just previous to the testator’s death, he and his wife being present, the old gentleman handed him a sealed envelope, saying: “John, take good care of this, and do not open it until after I am A PLAUSIBLE STORY. I 28 dead, when it may be of great service to you.” He took the envelope home and placed it in his bureau drawer, with other valuable papers, where it lay until the fact of its pos¬ session passed out of his mind. A few months previous to the discovery of the note he said his house was entered and robbed by burglars, and that shortly after the robbery he found lying in his front room, near the window, several valuable papers, among which was this note, also a letter purporting to have been written by the burglars, which said, “ These papers are of no value to us; we therefore return them, as they may be of use to you,” signed “The Burglar.” The papers had, as he supposed, been shoved into the room by raising the window from the outside. It then occurred to him that this note was a part of the contents of the envelope which had been presented to him by the testator. These circumstances, appearing so plausible, the note was at once allowed and paid by the executors. A few days afterward the man called w'ith another note, which he said his children had found under the edge of the house, near the window through which the returned papers had been put. He supposed that this note had acciden¬ tally in the darkness dropped from the hand of the burglar to the ground instead of going through the window as was intended, and that the wind had blown it under the edge of the house, where it had lain until found. That story also appearing plausible, and the note appearing to be in the genuine handwriting of the testator, it was allowed by the executors. Shortly after this he presented a note for a much larger sum, which he said the children had found under the edge of the horse-barn. This, he said, he sup¬ posed had dropped accidentally and the wind had blown it to the place where it was found. The third being for a larger sum, caused the executors to hesitate and take counsel before its payment. It was at this time that the notes which had been paid, together with the one which had been A PLAUSIBLE STORY. I 29 presented, were submitted to the writer. The payment of the third note was declined and suit was brought for its collection, when the demonstration of the forgery to court and jury was so complete that a verdict of forgery was almost instantly rendered, not only as to the notes in suit, but those which had been paid. The parties therefore not only failed in their claim upon the third note, but also were compelled to return the money which had already been paid on the previous ones. These notes with the interest aggre¬ gated about $13,000. CHAPTER XVI. THE LEWIS WILL CONTEST, HOBOKEN, N. J. —FORGERIES AGAINST THE ESTATE OF JAMES G. FAIR, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. — FORGED WILL OF A. J. DAVIS, OF BUTTE, MONTANA — FORGED CHECK AND NOTE AGAINST THE DODGE ESTATE, PLYMOUTH, N. H. — FORGED DEED, KINGSTON, N. Y. — BAKER WILL CONTEST, TORONTO — GORDON WILL CONTEST, JERSEY CITY, N. J.— forgery against the redfield estate, Syracuse, n. y. — THE MURDOCK ALLEGED FORGERY, WILLOWS, CAL.- THE MOREY-GARFIELD FORGED LETTER—CADET WHITTAKER CASE, WEST POINT — COLLUM - BLAISDELL ALLEGED FORGERY, MINNE¬ APOLIS— BOTKIN MURDER CASE, SAN FRANCISCO — DR. KENNEDY MURDER CASE, NEW YORK-HUNTER-LONG FORGERY, PHILA¬ DELPHIA— BECKER RAISED DRAFT, SAN FRANCISCO. The Lewis Will Contest. — It is probable that no legal contest in this country during the last decade, in which the genuineness of handwriting has been called in question, has attracted more attention than did the “ Lewis Will Case,” which began in the courts of Jersey City, N. J., in 1877, ant l ended in the United States Court at Trenton, N. J., in March, 1880, with the conviction and imprisonment of six persons who, in various capacities, had been engaged in the conspiracy. Joseph T. Lewis, a miserly old mulatto, died at Hoboken, N. J., in 1877, aged upward of eighty-seven years, leaving a will by which, after specifying several comparatively small legacies, he bequeathed the residue of his estate (amount¬ ing to over a million of dollars) to the United States, to be applied to the payment of the national debt. So far as was known at the time of his decease, he was a bachelor, and lewis’s personal peculiarities. I 31 had no near relative in this country — he being a native of Jamaica, West Indies. Little has been made known of Mr. Lewis’s life, or how he amassed his great fortune, except that he began life as an engineer, and afterward made shrewd and successful investments in Wall Street. From a sketch of his life, published in the New York Sun during the will contest, we abstract the following incidents illustrative of his eccentric habits of life:— “He dressed in well-fitting clothes, and was scrupulously neat. In one hand he carried a cane. Under his left arm was invariably a black umbrella on fine days in winter, and a yellow one in moderate summer weather. A flower usually decked his buttonhole in summer. He seems to have had a few intimate friends, among them the gentlemen he named as his executors, and Herman Batjer of New York, and Gen¬ eral Hatfield, a resident of Hoboken ; but he was a mystery to them all. His conversation showed that he had traveled in Europe and in South America. He displayed some familiarity with art, was a member of the National Academy of Design, and was delighted to do amateurs small favors in the way of tickets. He was simple in his tastes and habits, but was not averse to letting it be known that he could be a gourmand on occasion. His opinions, shrewd and generally sound, were always strongly and sometimes testily maintained. His invest¬ ments were almost uniformly successful, because he was careful and methodical, and never speculated. He never bought real estate. His whole fortune at his death, over a million and a half of dollars, could be carried in his hat. Before the day arrived for clipping his coupons, he had always provided for investing the proceeds, and he never kept money in a bank where it would not draw interest. He deeply sym¬ pathized with the Union cause at the outbreak of the war and in the emancipation of the slaves, and he said as he was too old to go into the army he would help the Government in his own way. This was to invest largely in United States bonds as each loan was offered. These, and solid securities, like gas stocks and New York Central, were his chief investments. He offered to buy 4,000 shares of Central in a lump from the old Commodore, whose death interrupted the negotiation. “About 1820 Lewis moved to Hoboken, where he continued to reside to the time of his death. He lived most of the time with only an old housekeeper in a modest house in Hoboken, and she complained that he half-starved her. At other times, when he lived in a boarding • 13 2 CONTESTANTS OF WILL. house, he was always suspicious that his landlady was stealing from him, or that she wanted to poison him to get his money. He seemed to take a cynical delight in encouraging people to believe that they would be remembered in his will, and he would take whatever favors their hopes led them to offer him. Everybody to him seemed to be guided by sinister motives. He kept Joshua Benson, of Hoboken, on the tenter-hooks for years. Benson was too poor to buy a house. Mr. Lewis loaned him the money, and got him to buy the one next to his. From that time Benson did almost a valet’s service for him, going his errands, reading to him, and humoring all sorts of whims. Mr. Lewis’s first will bequeathed his own house to Benson, and a handsome sum of money to his wife and children, of which fact he took care to let Joshua know. All at once he became suspicious of Benson, revoked the bequests, and demanded the return of the money he loaned him. Indeed, the testimony in the will case leaves little doubt that the old man was a kleptomaniac himself. He would pick up little articles in grocery ^stores or in neighbors’ houses when opportunity offered. About his own house he was slipshod. At the basement window he would be seen reading his newspaper, wearing a white nightcap, covered by an old straw hat, and with an old duster over his shoulders. The boys threw dirt at the window and shouted: ‘Hey! old bachelor!’ till he sallied out and chased them away. “ The old man was proud of his vigorous constitution, and attributed it to his temperate and prudent habits. Mr. James, of the Manhattan Bank building, who used to invest money for him, describes him as coming dancing into the office shortly before his death, at eighty-seven years: ‘ A-h-h! eighty-seven last Tuesday,’ he cried. ‘Teeth sound, firm on my legs: appetite good. Temperance!’ and the old man chuckling, would slap his breast like a crowing cock.” Although, as we have said, Mr. Lewis had always been known to his friends and neighbors as a bachelor and with¬ out near relatives, greatly to the surprise of the executors of his will, when that instrument was presented for probate, there appeared, as contestants, an alleged widow calling herself Jane H. Lewis, and one Thomas Lewis, who alleged himself to be a son, and two other persons, named John and Martin Cathcart, claiming to be nephews of the deceased millionaire. Then be^an a most determined and bitter contest of the will between the United States Gov- MR. LEWIS S ANTECEDENTS. 1 33 ernment, as proponents, and the alleged widow and rela¬ tives, as contestants. Among Lewis’s papers left at the Manhattan Bank in New York, where he had for many years transacted his business and kept his papers and securities, were found letters revealing the names of relatives at Jamaica, W. I., and among them one addressed “ My Dear Sir,” and signed “ Joseph Levy.” Mr. Lewis’s will had been drawn in the office of ex- Attorney-General Gilchrist, of Jersey City, and he was engaged on behalf of the executors to sustain it against these attacks. E. De R. Gillmore, a clerk in his office, was dispatched to Jamaica to investigate as to Mr. Lewis’s relatives. The same steamer carried out John Cathcart, of New York, one of the alleged nephews, who had come from Ireland, but he and Mr. Gillmore were unknown to each other. Mr. Gillmore’s first step on landing in Jamaica was to engage a lawyer named Nathan, who knew the Johnsons and Graces, named in Mr. Lewis’s correspon¬ dence as relatives. He also directed Mr. Gillmore to a very old black woman, who was familiar with their early history. Gillmore and Nathan went together to see the old black woman. She told the following story, as it was produced in court: Joseph Lewis’s father, she said, was a Jew named Jacob Levy; his mother, with whom Levy had lived, but whom he did not marry, was Jane Wright, a mulatto woman, whose mother was a full-blooded negress. Levy took his boy to New York, so that nobody could discover his parentage, and changed his name to Lewis, and after keeping him at school a while, bound him apprentice to an engraver. The old woman said she was told about this last circumstance by Charles James, another illegitimate child of Jane Wright by another father; she had also heard that Frances Grace and Magdalene Johnson had been receiving money regularly from this long-absent half-brother in New York. 134 AN ALLEGED WIDOW. After listening to the story of the old black woman, which he took down in writing, and making a careful search of the records of marriage, Mr. Gillmore satisfied himself that there were no legal heirs of Mr. Lewis in the West India Islands, and also that the reputed nephews of New York bore no relationship to him. While Mr. Gillmore was thus pursuing his quest in South America the putative widow was pressing her claims before Master-in-Chancery See, in Jersey City, to whom the Chan¬ cellor had referred the matter, to take testimony. The executors said that they had never heard of the million¬ aire’s marriage ; but she told her story with minuteness and confidence, and produced a genuine-looking marriage cer¬ tificate to verify it. This purported to have been drawn November 18, 1858, by Ethridge M. Fish, who, as was well known, had been a justice of the peace in Hoboken years ago. George R. Bradford, whose name appeared on the certificate as a witness to the ceremony, went upon the stand and testified that he had duly witnessed the mar¬ riage certificate. One Schmidt, who claimed to have been a commission merchant at 181 Pearl Street, swore that he had been in Mr. Lewis’s house in 1859, and there had been introduced to this lady by Mr. Lewis as his wife. Elijah Caldwell, a lawyer in New York, swore that he also had frequently visited Mr. Lewis at his house, and had seen Mrs. Lewis there, and even testified that he had at one time taken proceedings for a divorce on behalf of Mrs. Lewis against Joseph L. Lewis, which was speedily settled by the parties in his office. The alleged widow seemed to make a strong case. Indeed, Mr. R. W. Russell, counsel for Jamaica claimants, admitted, and evidently with perfect sincerity, that he was convinced her standing could not be shaken, and that he believed her to be an estimable woman. “ When she first met the old man,” he said, “ he was more than seventy years of age, and she was about twenty. He was twenty THE EXECUTORS PUZZLED. 135 years younger in appearance, and was as erect and agile as a man in the prime of life. To conceal the evidence of the trace of negro blood in his veins he shaved off his kinky hair and wore a wig. The dark tint in his cheeks he artfully concealed by a few touches of rouge. He courted Miss Hastings, who was handsome, attractive, and well educated, most assiduously. She came of noted families in England on both her father’s and her mother’s side. She was left an orphan at an early age, but she grew up with a strong pride in her ancestry, and her great ambition was to visit England. She once rejected Lewis’s offer of mar¬ riage, but he persisted in his suit. He concealed from her his doubtful parentage, and represented that he too was of an old English family. He told her that he had visited England, and had been presented at court. Finally, when he offered to take Miss Hastings to England in search of her ances¬ tors, and to devote himself and his fortune to the gratifica¬ tion of her wishes, she agreed to marry him. Why, he even made her believe that he possessed literary tastes. He used to copy poetry out of books, and pass it off on her as his original composition. “They lived together,” Mr. Russell continued, “for six months, and then she went away from him, a broken¬ hearted woman. In regard to his treatment of her, more will appear hereafter. One instance will give you an idea of her life. The old man came into her room one day and found her in tears, with a packet of letters from her parents and their pictures before her. In a rage, he swept letters and pictures into the fire, saying, ‘ These writings make you morbid.’ ” The executors and their counsel were puzzled by this mysterious widow, who seemed to have sprung up from the earth. She was tall, light-complexioned, modestly dressed in black, about forty years of age, self-possessed, and evi¬ dently a woman of experience. She declined on the stand to give her residence, and the executors put detectives on 1 3 6 THE SUSPECTED FORGER. her track vainly for a time. At last one succeeded, after she had led him through a puzzling chase on her way home after giving her testimony. He swore that she crossed to New York by the Desbrosses-Street ferry, then took a West-Street car to the Staten Island ferry, which she crossed, and returned on the same boat; then visited the Astor House and a number of other places, fetching up at last in No. 22 St. Mark’s Place, which the detective ascer¬ tained to be a boarding-house. Her further movements were watched steadily. In the month of August it was declared that she made about thirty visits to pawn-shops with small articles, which she pawned in the name of Jane Holbrook. It was declared by the detectives that she was seen to associate with Marcus T. Sacia, who had been repeatedly charged with forgery. The Palisade Insurance Company of Jersey City did business for a time on bogus securities, and Marcus Sacia’s father, Charles Sacia, was indicted for his agency in it. Another associate, to whom, as alleged, she paid furtive visits, was one Dr. Park. The detectives said that, under pretense of writing an article on Joseph Lewis for Harper s Magazine, Dr. Park succeeded in gleaning from Joshua Benson, of Hoboken, the most minute particulars of Mr. Lewis’s life. This, the executors claimed, might explain the widow’s seeming familiar knowledge of the old man and his habits. The alleged marriage certificate was shown to a son of Ethridge M. Fish, who swore that he believed the signa¬ ture to be a forgery. His father, he said, was not a justice of the peace at the date of the certificate, November 18, 1858, but in 1858 or 1859 went to Iowa. The executors sought intelligence of him there, and were told that he was dead, and that the man most likely to be engaged in the alleged forgery of his signature was Mark Sacia, who had been associated with him in Iowa in various transactions. Sacia had been employed in the office of the Recorder of MORE FORGED CERTIFICATES. 137 Pocahontas County, and a large quantity of his writings were found there, including several county books. County officials who had long known both Sacia and Fish came on from Iowa, bringing and identifying these writings as Sacia’s, and after examining the marriage certificate swore that, in their opinion, it was written by Sacia. They had observed his intimacy with Fish in Iowa, and had seen him imitate Fish’s signature by holding a paper against the win¬ dow and tracing over it with a pencil. They swore that Sacia had engaged in several culpable transactions in Iowa, and had finally fled the State, secreted in a dry-goods box, to escape punishment for the forgery of Lyons County bonds. It was ascertained, through the aid of the Chief of the Bureau of Engraving at Washington, D. C., Mr. Casillear, that the engraved blank upon which the alleged marriage certificate was written could not have been in existence at the time of the alleged date of the certificate in 1858, as the plate from which it was printed underwent very mate¬ rial alteration in 1862, and that, therefore, no such blanks could have existed until after that date. Although this fact seemed conclusively proved, it was sought to overthrow it by the production of other marriage certificates of even a prior date, written upon a blank printed from the same plate, and that, therefore, the testimony concerning the plate was insufficient to establish the forgery. In order to accomplish this a clergyman was offered to prove the regis¬ ter of St. Ambrose Church in New York, by which it appeared that certain persons had been married on the 28th of August, 1859, and this having been proved, two other marriage certificates were produced purporting to have been made in the years 1858 and 1859. Frank Fleet was the person who was married according to one of these certificates, and William Arnoux was the witness. Frank Fleet, Arnoux, and Elijah j. Caldwell swore to the genuineness of these certificates, and to their EXPERTS ARE CALLED. 138 knowledge of the circumstances of the marriages, in posi¬ tive terms, going into minute circumstances of the transac¬ tions to show that these certificates, precisely like that of Mrs. Lewis, were really made and signed at about the same time as that which purported to be the marriage certificate of Joseph and Jane H. Lewis. It was, however, subsequently proved conclusively that those certificates were also forgeries, concocted for the spe¬ cial purpose of bolstering the original forgery. An expert upon handwriting was now called by the proponents, who pronounced the marriage certificate a forgery, and on com¬ paring it with Lewis’s writing declared his belief that the body of it was in Sacia’s undisguised hand. Comparing it with the writing of Fish, which had also been proved, he said the signature, “ Ethridge M. Fish,” appended to the cer¬ tificate, was in Sacia’s handwriting and an imitation of the writing of Fish. He then set about making a conclusive demonstration of the correctness of his conclusion, —to do which he caused a large quantity of the writing of both Sacia and Fish to be photo-lithographed, and from these printed copies he cut out words and parts of words corre¬ sponding to those of the forged marriage certificates, and arranged and pasted them upon a cardboard in the same order as in the certificate — thus making up two certifi¬ cates : one from the actual writing by Sacia, and another by Fish. (See accompanying exhibits.) These two cer¬ tificates were then compared with the forged certificates, which made it at once apparent that the body of the same was in the almost undisguised writing of Sacia, while the signature was a close imitation of Fish’s, but likewise forged by Sacia. Facsimiles of these three certificates are here¬ with given, together with their form, as made up from the clippings from the writings of Sacia and Fish. In the latter part of the year 1879, Frank Fleet, one of the parties to the marriage certificates produced in confirma¬ tion of the original certificate, became very ill and was CERTIFICATE MADE UP FROM FISH’S WRITING. FACSIMILE OF FISH’S WRITING. 139 apparently about to die. He made a full confession that he had been persuaded to swear falsely as to these certificates. In the mean time the Government detectives, under the direction of Special Agent H. M. Bennett, of Newark, N. J., 1 4 o THE FORGED MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE. had fully satisfied themselves that these two marriage certifi¬ cates were forged by the same person who had concocted the original conspiracy; and after the confession of Fleet, three of the persons who had proved those certificates were CERTIFICATE MADE UP FROM FORGER SACIA’S WRITING. THE FORGER SACXA’s WRITING. IAI brought forward and examined on behalf of the Govern¬ ment, and thoroughly exposed the fraud. At this period of the case Mrs. Lewis found it necessary, as she afterward stated in her confession, to furnish some /KST, I4 2 MORE EVIDENCE. material evidence of the fact that she had lived with Mr. Lewis as his wife. She was urged to do so by her counsel, who felt the force of the fact that thus far no article or relic remained as a memento or token of her married life. She stated with great minuteness how this was done. Mrs. Isabella Harper testified to the finding of an old pillow-case containing a considerable quantity of old laces, silks, and other articles, which she alleged had been left by Mrs. Lewis in her house in 1862 at the time she boarded there; that Mrs. Lewis had used the pillow-case as a rag-bag, and in moving from the house had left it behind; that during the examination before the Master, Mrs. Lewis had come to her house and learned of the fact of this pillow-case having been left by her with Mrs. Harper, and requested her to produce it before the Master and testify to the cir¬ cumstances, and to the fact that it had been there in her possession since 1862; that on being opened, they found, among the old articles in the bag, two old yellow receipts for board signed by the daughter of Mrs. Harper, saying that they were receipts for the board of Mrs. Jane H. Lewis. The pillow-case was found to be marked “Joseph L. Lewis ” in what was alleged to be his own handwriting. This piece of evidence was naturally deemed very impor¬ tant on the part of the alleged widow, in contradiction to the overwhelming testimony adduced against her, as to the plate from which the marriage certificate was made; but in her late confession she explained that it was contrived under the direction of Dr. Park, the chief conspirator, who sent her the pillow-case, and who must have procured the name of Lewis to be forged upon it. She thereupon put the old articles into it, and carried it to Mrs. Harper, and requested her to produce it before the Master, and testify to its having been there since 1862. This was her last effort. About this time it had been ascertained that Mrs. Lewis, the alleged widow, had in 1874 personated a Mrs. Jennie THE WIDOW A FRAUD. H3 Hammond in proceedings for a divorce from a pretended husband, in order to blackmail a gentleman with whom she had been improperly intimate. District-Attorney Keasbey went to Washington, D. C., in order to secure the attend¬ ance of the gentleman in question to identify Mrs. Lewis as Mrs. Jennie Hammond. Mr. John R. Dos Passos, a lawyer of good character in New York, had been employed in this case on behalf of the gentleman in question, and had had several interviews with the so-called Jennie Hammond. He, together with the gentleman from Washington, came to the office of Mr. See, in Jersey City, and fully identified Mrs. Lewis as Jennie Hammond. Mr. Dos Passos and his brother and clerk being called as witnesses, produced letters written by the alleged widow while personating the character, and alleging that she was Mrs. Jennie Hammond, and made the matter so clear that it was impossible for respectable counsel to continue longer to maintain her claims. Within a short time thereafter she filed a formal renunciation of her claim as widow, and her case was ended. Further testimony was taken on behalf of the executors to establish the competency of Mr. Lewis and his capacity to make a will. This was proved by many bankers and others in New York who had known him during a long course of years. The will case was then closed. Some conception of the length and persistency of this contest may be formed when it is stated that about three thousand pages of testimony were taken relative to the alleged marriage alone. Immediately after the filing of her renunciation Mr. Dis¬ trict-Attorney Keasbey brought the matter to the attention of the Grand Jury, then in session at Trenton, and obtained an indictment against nine persons, viz., Andrew J. Park, Jane H. Lewis, Marcus T. Sacia, Henry T. Bassford, Frank Allison, George R. Bradford, Mary J. Russell, George N. Westbrook, and Frances Helen Peabody. These were the i 4 4 CONSPIRATORS CONVICTED. persons whom Mr. Keasbey’s long investigation into the details of this conspiracy had led him to believe were the contrivers of the plot. He had had conclusive evidence against many of them in his hands for some months, but had abstained from taking criminal proceedings in order to avoid the imputation that the United States were using criminal processes to affect a civil proceeding. As soon, however, as the conspiracy was so thoroughly exposed through the evidence of Mr. Dos Passos and others as to induce the widow to abandon her claims, Mr. Keasbey pro¬ cured the indictments and caused the arrest simultaneously, on the ist of February, of most of the persons implicated. He became satisfied that Dr. Andrew J. Park was the chief contriver of the plot and the originator of the whole claim within'a few days after the death of Mr. Lewis; that he had known Mrs. Lewis for a long time before, and, taking advantage of the fact that her name was really Mrs. Lewis, had persuaded her to join him in the execution of the con¬ spiracy by personating the widow, and that he had almost immediately combined with Marcus T. Sacia, well known for his connection with forged writings, and had procured from him the forged marriage certificate, which must have been executed a few days after the death of Mr. Lewis. The other persons accused were the tools of these con¬ spirators. Three of the conspirators were tried and convicted in the United States Court at Trenton, N. J., of conspiracy to defraud the Government out of the property bequeathed by Joseph L. Lewis to the United States, viz., the pre¬ tended wfidow, Jane H. Lewis, who pleaded guilty and was used as a witness on the part of the Government, and Dr. Andrew ]. Park, Marcus T. Sacia, George R. Bradford, Frank Allison, and Henry T. Bassford, whose trial began on the 27th of February, 1880, and closed on the 10th of March, with a verdict against all, Bradford being recom¬ mended to the mercy of the court, Mrs. Lewis, in her con- THE FORGED WILL OF JAMES G. FAIR. 1 45 fession, having alleged that Bradford really believed that she was the widow and had lost her certificate, and con¬ sented to sign the forged one and to swear to its genuine¬ ness out of sympathy for her. The court sentenced Sacia and Allison to two years’ imprisonment, and to pay a fine of $10,000 each ; Bradford and Bassford to one year’s imprisonment, and to pay a fine of $1,000 each. Park was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Forgeries Against the Estate of James G. Fair.— Whether regarded from the magnitude of the sum involved, the duration and acrimony of the legal contest, which ran through nearly a year, (the trial continuing over five months,) or the boldness and persistence of the crime, the forged claims against the Fair estate constituted one of the causes cdlebres of the United States. Chief of the forged instruments was a will disposing of an estate of about twenty millions of dollars, and when it became apparent that the will was not likely to succeed in its purpose, two deeds were placed on record, purporting to have been executed by James G. Fair, conveying to Mar¬ garet Craven property in San Francisco valued at a million and a half of dollars, Mrs. Craven also produced an alleged marriage contract between herself and Mr. Fair, and pur¬ porting to bear, with hers, his signature. As yet, however, Mrs. Craven has made no legal claim as a widow under the alleged contract. The expert phase of the contest was chiefly as to the genuineness of the will, it being most lengthy and alleged to be in the pencil-writing of Mr. Fair. It presented an extent of material that admitted of a most conclusive demonstration of its falsity, as will be seen by reference to the illustrations and their explanation herewith presented. The will consisted of two full legal-cap pages, written with a pencil on one side of two sheets, which presented a con- 146 DIFFICULTIES IN WAY OF THE FORGER. dition most practical for tracing, by which means the for¬ gery was largely perpetrated. Had it been attempted to write on both sides of one sheet, the writing on the first page would have so far interfered with that of the second page as to have made it impracticable. Where a long legal document, especially one so full of technical words and phrases as a will, is to be fabricated, there would be no likelihood that the forger would have sufficient examples of the chirography of the person whose writing was to be simulated as to present models for any considerable portion of the words required in its composi¬ tion ; and here would be, as it proved in this case, the fatal difficulty. Such words as were found in the model writing could easily be traced in pencil, by placing the paper on which the forgery was being made over the word to be copied, holding it against a sheet of glass upon an incline, and simply tracing over them with a pencil. Since the whole will was in pencil, this was a very simple operation, but when the necessity came to use a word not to be found in his model writing-, it was more difficult. Such words required to be made up syllable by syllable or letter by letter. Then would occur not only a difficulty of making the correct forms of letters, but to make the proper and natural connections between the syllables or letters; and as one syllable would be required to be taken from one piece of writing and an adjoining one from another piece, perhaps written upon a different scale, with different pencil, and under different circumstances, there would be a discrepancy in size and slant, awkward spacing, vacillation as to shade, base-lines, etc. Again, if the model writing was somewhat limited, it would not furnish examples for all the natural and habitual variations of the writing sought to be imitated, which would lead to an unnatural duplication of such pecu¬ liarities as were present in their limited material; also shades which are not sufficiently heavy would require to be retouched. EVIDENCE FROM COMPARISON. I47 Cut (1) is a reproduction of a portion of the first page of the will, and cut (2) represents Fair’s genuine writing. Referring to cut (1), it will be observed that the words “is,” “last,” “will,” “by,” “be,”_/e>r, in “former,” be and th, in “bequeath,” are duplicates of Fair’s writing. Com¬ pare “will,” lines 2 and 3, with same word, cut (2), line 4; for in “former,” with “from,” cut (2), line 7. In the will the first word is clearly in two parts, the line between h and i being spliced and the space twice as long as other spaces in the word. The different examples of “my,” lines 2, 4, 7, and 10, are evidently copied from the same model. This word occurs eighteen times; sixteen times it terminates with a hook above the base-line, while with some forty final ys in Fair’s writing only two termi¬ nate with a hook, and these are below the base-line. A model of Fair’s “my” is shown in cut (2), line 11. The word “former,” in cut (1), line 2, is a good example of a word made up of one word (“for”) and then completed with a letter (in) and a syllable ( er ). “ Bequeath,” per¬ haps, is as fine an illustration as any of word-building by syllables and letters,— be , y, u , e , ath, —and this word, once satisfactorily made, is duplicated in the will thirteen times, with its awkward combination and vacillating base-line. It. occurs three times in cut (1), lines 4, 7, 10. “ Crothers,” line 5, is another example which must suffice. The word “equally,” lines 6, 9, 11, is made up letter by letter, and is duplicated twelve times in the will. The word “ Edward,” cut (1), line 10, and cut (2), line 12, gives an opportunity to compare the capital E. Examples of the retouching of shades in the forgery are the two As, line 1 ; T, line 2 ; /, lines 3, 4, 7. There were over five hundred retouchings and breaks between letters and syllables. Attention is called to the vacillating character of the writing in the forgery as regards size, shade, spacing, letters, syllables, words, and lines, and also to the short projections of the loops, as compared with Fair’s writing. (1) SECTION FROM THE FORGED WILL. (2) FAIR’S GENUINE WRITING. X ^ ^ vs \ v. ? C K.< PARTICULAR WORDS DUPLICATED. Necessarily only a comparatively few of the character¬ istic differences between the writing in the forgery and Fair’s writing can be here illustrated, or even mentioned. Their exemplification before the court occupied nearly one week on the direct and nearly the same time on the cross- examination. As a further illustration, we present a few groups of words and letters, with forged and genuine signatures. The first line following is made up of words and figures from the forged will. The second line shows the same words as Fair really wrote them. Note that Fair uses the dollar- mark ($), and that he begins the word “dollars” with a capital. This was his invariable habit. Throughout the forged papers the reverse of this is shown, as here illus¬ trated. / OOOQ 9upUeatvon o\)ko\'6d tviTVill FROM THE FORGED WILL. FAIR’S GENUINE WRITING. THE First line following shows single words written by fair. THE SECOND LINE SHOWS THE SAME WORDS AS THEY APPEAR IN THE FORGED WRITING . a ~4 4 -ltrfrf rp (p -rf^of'U^cfZrf -tves^ ? pjpo 'Ue -2- of O-oSe frxf ffrtrfa^crf 'Pto*rfu*/ O / / /O' / '» v / ' ' ' , N / , '/ve&) " ' ■ AT/ > \^ / (/¥6(rfj jS &zc/( Ola***** f^T/ SAMPLE OF WRITING BY THE FORGER. 155 while the margins were torn and picked so as to give it a sort of saw-tooth appearance; besides the whole character and appearance of the document was that of having been written by a blundering ignoramus. Many of the most common words were misspelled. For instance the word “give” was spelled guive; “whether,” wheather; “sheet,” sheat; “shall,” shal; “worldly,” wordly , etc. Under the SECTIONS FROM EDDY’S WRITING. / 0*0 of/ ' 9 *t£^ ^ dduA' cP JcoK'UJL ^ jMdi 0/ d?crcy S ,, 1 -2*i iftt /jbzie^e? <^z> ^ cob Wft, °ft a/ -^A£AJ1~jS£, ^ Ceuy£.obbot - " J> ----^- t . \ otcu^isuyO _Vv*- • cr^u] A GRAND FARCE. ! 5 6 peculiar statute of Montana and equally peculiar ruling of the judge, no comparison of the writing of the alleged will with standard writing was permitted, not even the alleged signature to the will with signatures known to have been written by A. J. Davis. The trial resulted in a disagree- -ment by the jury, and was finally settled by compromise. Under the laws of Montana, when handwriting is in question, one having knowledge thereof may give testi¬ mony, but the Judge held that the word “knowledge” contemplated only such knowledge as one might have from previous familiarity with the writing in question, and not knowledge such as an expert might acquire from study and comparison. The law further states that when “any matter which involves art, science, or trade, persons skilled therein may be called to give testimony respecting the same”; but the judge held that writing was neither an art, science, nor trade, and therefore excluded all expert testimony, and also all standard writing even to the signature of the testator. Yet on the mere allegation of an unknown man, that, over twenty years before, he had met Mr. Davis in the highway and paid him some money, for which he gave him a receipt written with pencil, while sitting in his carriage, was per¬ mitted to testify to the genuineness of the signature to the will. The trial was one of the greatest farces ever enacted in a court of justice. The known forger sat in the court¬ room during some of the trial, shielded by the fact that all expert testimony was excluded, when its admission would have surely demonstrated the will to be a forgery, and James R. Eddy to be the forger. We append cuts of writing, showing a few of the many coincident characteristics as between the writing of the forged will and one known to have been in the handwriting of Eddy, and could have been proved into the case as such. Fd>c-sinr\iSes from Will.. * / „ O us^/c^/ 'B^yk/^ sU/a^ C$Oi Ctyf^ Ck^, • *44^ F&c-singles of Eddy’s writing a r^yfyt^L^ . Cl^istyUtA-P, / 2 l^-c^/c kf aaYaslf >*Jd£~€t^dL^CL^ ^e&'/fCtJ^ sdJaJ oi C4^t4^ < 2 V-C^ fk^Jf 04^ (kyik^f /0y^/kt^4^ FACSIMILES FROM EDDY’S WRITING. FACSIMILES FROM WILL. 7 c/. 0 /^ cestui o( tyf. sZL&ZZfZ d, O^u^a c 4 /Ttusk cyf. , o/j^Xex-^-i- &/_ ^py/fcs-ts-P c/, \o-/o/. c^// aJft ejty , * n * ^s{SlA. ~^StAs iSl^X -^'Z'L ,ytsy\ ' 1 st 'i 12 g t ^yu/ti^Zat C/Z^J (y p a f t~ f - (f r & 0- /■ P ' cy/s^l y^isZA l^st^CA 2.7 < 7'«**? (mi) (X f (?■ ^ cf (jVr ^ V (f ^ /* £■ A REMARKABLE TRIUMPH OF EXPERT EVIDENCE. I 59 The Dodge-Raymond Case. — No other case, within our knowledge, has ever been tried before an American court wherein a more ingenious and romantic crime of forgery has been traced and so utterly baffled by expert testimony as in the Dodge-Raymond trial at Plymouth, N. H., in 1885. Although tried as a libel case, it was really one of forgery. The following is from a report of the trial by the Bellows Fall (Vt.) Times:— “Mr. J. A. Dodge was president of the Boston, Concord, and Mon¬ treal Railroad, and his business relations were, therefore, very extensive. His health became poor, and in the early part of 1882 he went to Cali¬ fornia for its improvement, but failed to recover it. Henry Raymond was a confidential clerk or private secretary in his office. Mr. Dodge died in August, 1882, leaving a will and three codicils giving a detailed description of his possessions, and advice to his wife, as the executrix, for the payment of all legacies and other obligations. Raymond presented to the bank and got cashed a check for $2,500 a few hours before Mr. Dodge died, the same purporting to have been signed by Mr. Dodge only a few days previous, and immediately after his death he presented a note for $5,000 to the widow for payment. Of course, Raymond claimed that all of this came from the good will which Mr. Dodge had for him. When Raymond showed his papers to Mrs. Dodge, or announced what he had, she denounced them as forgeries, and him as a forger, in no uncertain terms, claiming that as her husband had told her very fully of his affairs it was very strange he had not told her about this. She expressed the same to others, and thereupon Raymond brought a suit against Mrs. Dodge for libel and damages for $5,000, to be followed by suits to recover the amount of the check and note. This is a mere brief of the case at this point, as it is not our purpose to go into the details of all the suit, but only to bring out a special point in the trial. “ The trial began November 17th and continued several days, during which several parties of prominence, who were familiar with the handwriting of Dodge, testified to the genuineness of Mr. Dodge’s signature to the note and check. It will be seen, of course, that the bank which cashed the $2,500 check was naturally interested in the result of the case. One of the witnesses (one of the selectmen of Plymouth) testified how he advised Mrs. Dodge to settle the same, as he believed the signature to be genuine, and ‘ she would be $5,000 poorer when the case was finished.’ At this point counsel for Mrs. i6o PRESS REPORTS OF THE TRIAL. Dodge asked ‘Why?’ ‘ Because you are going to get beaten,’ replied the selectman. “ On the 19th the plaintiff rested and apparently had a strong case. A contest sprang up as to the number of experts and the number of admittedly genuine signatures and other writing of Mr. Dodge that should be allowed, and Judge Smith decided that twenty signatures might be produced by each side, and that three experts and twenty non-professionals should be allowed to testify for each. “On the 20th the defense opened by a statement from Charles A. Jewell, of counsel for the defense. Several witnesses testified, their testimony being mainly circumstantial, among them Mrs. Dodge, the defendant, and also the Hon. Edgar Aldrich, of Littleton, who said he doubted the genuineness of the signature to both note and check. The testimony of Mrs. Dodge and Raymond were flat contradictions. This and other similar testimony continued, the excitement and attend¬ ance increasing every day till Tuesday, the 24th. Now came the ‘tug of war.’ Mr. D. T. Ames, of New York, was put on the stand as an expert. Enlarged photographs, nearly three feet long, of the signa¬ tures to the codicil of Mr. Dodge’s will, written during his illness, and his alleged signature of the check and note were exhibited side by side before the jury, when Mr. Ames instituted a close and telling com¬ parison between the genuine and forged signatures, pointing out clearly and in detail the many evidences of forgery, making at the same time a free and skillful use of a blackboard and crayon for the illustration of the nice characteristic distinctions which he drew between the writing of the genuine and forged signatures. He had examined a letter writ¬ ten by Mr. Dodge in California to Mr. Raymond, and found the figures ‘ 26 ’ and the word ‘ Raymond ’ in the note the same in every particular, and claimed the forger had copied the words and date by means of trac¬ ing. In twenty-eight capital D 's found in the standards written by Mr. Dodge, he had found no one that in all its nice characteristics was like those in the signatures in question. “As Mr. Ames continued his testimony he most plainly laid open the forgery and plot of Raymond in the most convincing manner. Indeed, he tore all pretension to genuineness to shreds, not only respecting the check and note, but showed how Raymond had even fabricated by tracing an entire letter alleged to have been given him by Mr. Dodge, evincing his good will and previous promise to ‘ do something’ for him (Raymond) as furnishing a motive and considera¬ tion for the pretended legacy consummated in the giving of the check and note. “ Mr. Ames’s testimony was as convincing to the prosecution as to plaintiff’s attorneys abandon the case. 161 all others. At its close the attorneys for the prosecution immediately announced their inability to controvert his testimony, and expressed a willingness that the defense should have a verdict, which the jury ren¬ dered without leaving their seats. “The note was surrendered to Mrs. Dodge’s counsel. The case had collapsed ; the whole business was admitted to be a forgery, and Raymond was arrested before leaving the court-room, on a warrant issued by the presiding judge, and placed under bonds to appear for trial for forgery. “ In many respects it would be admitted that the forgery was close to the genuine, and the casual reader and many familiar with the hand¬ writing of Mr. Dodge could be well excused for believing the hand¬ writing to be genuine, and yet in the dissection of the letters and words, distances, shadings, and in various other ways, Mr. Ames threw a perfect flood of unquestionable light, covering the entire case, and certainly a most remarkable instance of effective expert testimony. ’ ’ The Manchester (N. H.) Daily Union , November 25th, commenting on the Dodge-Raymond case, said:— “ The sudden and unexpected turn of affairs in the Dodge-Raymond suit to-day produced a profound sensation, and the case seems destined to become known as one of the most remarkable in the criminal annals of New Hampshire. . . . The case was sharply contested, point by point, by the opposing counsel, and when the court assembled this morning, no one of the crowd of spectators suspected that the end was so near at hand. “Mr. Ames, the New York expert, resumed his testimony, com¬ menced yesterday, and step by step unfolded and made clear the entire plot of Raymond respecting not only the forgery of the $2,500 check and $5,000 note, but of letters purporting to have been signed, and one written and signed by Dodge, intended for the double purpose of show¬ ing a reason for his giving to Raymond the check and note, and to furnish standard signatures which, when compared with those upon the check and the note, should prove their genuineness. “ The evidence produced a profound sensation, but neither court nor spectators were prepared for the surprise that followed when Raymond’s counsel, after consultation, announced their agreement that a verdict of not guilty be entered for Mrs. Dodge in the suit for slander. It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen, and the audience found it difficult to realize that the famous Dodge-Raymond suit had fallen through. The developments in the affair thus far equal Gaboriau’s most sensational inventions.” THE FORGED CHECK. THE FORGED NOTE. LETTER FROM DODGE TO RAYMOND, FROM WHICH THE FORGED LETTER OF JUNE 25, 1883, WAS LARGELY MADE UP. 3'Cotdi 5ct^)UovvVe, ^Ont ERE.V.^''" /fFJ .S (Cl Cly-<-XuF/ yxFFlj c^j yx-cuy , ^F C^Cco —£- (X -T- r^ Ot-^1 /t,^ ^ c- ^ (X? y(^Fy' jcy J) y^F /2> C JU^zy^ & 'O^-x. iy(_S _ / Cxxx— cyFFy £xx£^Fy d'Z^F c/xy-L-jf /ytx~e£F c/^JUxC £iF/Cyy txyiryFz. Cc^) ciyt^^' t /C*?^y cy-FcF Fx-c^^x FFy^- iF'UyFc /yJ s//.yvM yry cX *j/^, <^*0 yF/xFFt^ cF(F^ciFC^ gjyFc^fy /^{LXcFF^IFx- rf\£^jyc Cy ’ 6' ^F Fxj^nyt £^F^//x^(LX/ ^^7-T ;^FlxuMx {y^Cis^-y /fay^y yFCcyx^-’ y ~i- y j( Boston Concord andMontreal Railroad . OFf/re of PENCIL LETTER, FORGED BY TRACING THE WORDS AND SIGNATURE FROM THE LETTER ON OPPOSITE PAGE. Hon. Harry Bingham, ex-Justice of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, said: “Raymond’s coolness in pre¬ senting the note to the widow for payment, and his audacity A FORGED DEED. I 66 in suing her for slander because she said his note and check were forgeries, combined to mark him as a rogue of unusual foresight in conception, subtlety in design, and boldness in execution, and to stamp the case as one of the most remarkable ones of its kind. The skilled expert work and unflagging industry in searching out the character¬ istics of the handwriting of both Dodge and Raymond through a great mass of manuscript, in devising means of making the propositions you would enunciate intelligible and convincing to the jury, and the success which attended your efforts, were all so unquestionable and summary that counsel for Raymond, in what lately appeared an impreg¬ nable case, abandoned it at the end of your direct expert testimony, and conceded a verdict to the defendant with¬ out exceptions or compromise.” A Forged Deed. —-Among; the most daring forgeries o c» o that have come before the courts of the State of New York, was that of a forged deed. In 1857 a gentleman died in Ulster County, leaving to his three daughters, by will, a homestead valued at $16,000, on which they continued to reside in undisputed posses¬ sion until the death of the last sister, some time in 1889. At that time one D. D. Bell produced an alleged old deed conveying the homestead to a nephew upon the decease of the sisters, which deed Bell said was executed by the father just prior to his decease and left with him (Bell) in trust for the nephew, with directions that it must be kept a secret, and not be recorded until alter the decease of his daughters. The deed was placed on record at the Regis¬ ter’s office, in Kingston. At the same time another deed was recorded, conveying one half of the estate to an attor¬ ney who appeared on behalf of the nephew. An action was at once brought to expunge the two deeds from the record on the ground of forgery. At the trial, at Kingston, N. Y., in 1887, the deed was proved to be a forgery, and STANDARD AND FORGED WRITING COMPARED. 1 67 Bell was soon after convicted of the crime and sentenced to the State Prison. The forged deed purported to have been written and witnessed by one Snyder in 1857, an d was acknowledged by Bell as notary. Photographs of both deeds were placed in the hands of each juryman and the court. While the expert testimony was being given and illustrated upon a blackboard, the attention of the jurymen was directed to the peculiar features of each of the writings by the number of the line in which they concurred, and to the palpable evi¬ dence that the paper upon which the alleged old deed was written had been manipulated by washing with some col¬ ored fluid and roughly handled to give to it an apparent age which it did not possess. On the next page is a reproduction of a portion of a deed written by Snyder which was used as a standard for comparison with the forged deed at the trial. From the character of the writing of the forged deed it was apparent that the forger had only a limited amount of Snyder’s writing to serve as models in his forgery. Cer¬ tainly he had no deed, else there would have been a more characteristic reproduction of such peculiarly displayed words as “This Indenture,” “Lord,” “Between,” and “ Witnesseth,” and the capital letters W, Afl and Y Again, it is obvious that the forger was a student of the Spence¬ rian school of writing which was not in vogue in Snyder’s time, his writing being that of the old shaded round-hand which preceded the Spencerian. It will be observed that the ri s and ms in the standard writing close back nearly to top, where they have round turns, while in the forged writ¬ ing they are nearly open angles. A curious mistake of the forger was made in the word “of.” In the standard writing this word is made in two ways, one finishing at the center with a small loop, as in lines 2, 5, and 6, and elsewhere. In the other, the finishing stroke uniformly passed over the staff to the \ ^ -sf ^ vs * Section of Forged Dec cl. i ;o COMPARISON CONTINUED. Forffocl 'Sijfi of Sr/tjcIe/\ left, as in lines 9 and 11, and elsewhere frequently in the deed. The forger either had only the one style in his limited copy or failed to observe the other, and in every instance carried the finishing stroke over to the left of the staff but invariably over the top of the 0. See lines 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and so on through the deed without exception. In the standard writing there were several methods of making the small 0 , as in lines 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, etc., while in the forged deed there was but one form. We call attention to but few of the many character¬ istic distinctions between the two writings pointed out at the trial. An insuperable difficulty was encountered by the forger in Snyder’s genuine signature, which was freely written, the capitals and loops being swept with an arm movement and the entire signature inclosed within an oval flourish; this could be imitated only AN UP-TO-DATE SIGNATURE FOR AN ANCIENT ONE. I 7 I by a drawn movement, which produced irregular, nervous, and ragged lines, while the inclosing flourish was made more circular than that of the genuine. Another striking and peculiar oversight on the part of Bell was that when he came to sign his own name to the forged deed, as notary, he used the habitual signature of 1887 instead of that of 1857, between which there was a marked discrepancy as the accompanying illustrations will show. These also show how Bell’s signature should have appeared upon the deed dated in 1857, if genuine. j 3 ell 6 S ig- toUflpd. Boll's Si(j& iji/S'%'4. BBls Sig.ni/%B7’ .Mj The Baker Will Contest. — The contention in this case, which was tried in Toronto, Ontario, before Judge Ferguson, was over a single word interlined in the body of a will. Although only a single word, it changed the disposi¬ tion of something over $30,000. Mr. Baker died in Georgetown, Ontario, leaving a will bequeathing a large estate to two sons and two daughters. The sons were named in the will as the executors. Upon examination of the will after the decease of Mr. Baker, the word “ between ” was found to be interlined so as to direct over $30,000, a residue of the estate after payment of all debts and speci¬ fied legacies, to be divided between the executors. The 172 A UNIQUE WILL CONTEST. sons were charged with inserting the interlineation in the will, it having been in a safe at the paternal home, where the sons continued to reside. The writer of the will, a Mr. Knight, \ S was consulted as to the interline- „ ation, also the two witnesses to the will. Knight declared that the o interlineation was not written by him, nor was it in the will at the time of the signing. The wit- nesses did not observe the will sufficiently close to know whether or not the interlineation was in the will when signed and witnessed. o The sense of the will being in¬ complete without the interlineation, it was claimed by the contestants that the word “by” should have been written in place of “between.” By the sons it was claimed that inasmuch as the father had pre¬ viously made large bequests to the daughters at the time of their mar¬ riage, it seemed probable, as it was alleged, that his purpose was to equalize the shares of the sons with those of the daughters, by dividing between the sons the residue of his estate. The will was submitted to the writer for an opinion as to whether or not the interlined word was writ¬ ten by Mr. Knight, and was con¬ sequently in the will when it was signed. Upon the examination of a large number of documents writ- THE GORDON WILL CONTEST. 173 ten by Knight it was discovered,— first, that wherever he made an interlineation it was in back-hand, the reverse of his habitual slant; second , that he had a peculiar habit of sometimes omitting the loop from extended letters, and afterward putting it on (this was done in the b in “between,” and also in the word “be” at the beginning of the line in which the interlineation occurred); third , Knight had a muscular difficulty in his fingers that frequently pro¬ duced an involuntary jerk at the base of his extended letters which was manifest also at the base of the b in “ between ” ; fourth, the characteristic cross of the t in “between,” coincident with other crosses in the will. These and some other reasons proved conclusively that the interlineation was placed there by Knight, and the will was admitted to probate as interlined. Tiie Gordon Will Contest. — The contest of this will was before the Chancellor of New Jersey, at Newark, during the year 1892. The will disposed of a large estate in a manner which rendered its genuineness highly improbable. It was therefore contested on the ground of forgery. On page 174 is presented a facsimile of the closing paragraph, together with the contested signature of George P. Gordon and those of the three alleged witnesses, to the will; also, on page 175 are a number of genuine signatures of Mr. Gordon, above which is the alleged signature to the will. The body of the will was conced- edly in the writing of Henry Adams. By reference to the illustration on page 175, it will be observed that the forged signature is really a very bad imitation of either of the genuine ones. First, it is, in a general way, upon a much more contracted scale, more heavy and formal in its construction, and has not the dash and grace of Gordon’s genuine signatures. In the forgery the capital G’s begin at the base with an upward move¬ ment, and is one continuous movement from the beginning 174 EVIDENCE OF FORGERY. to its very formal finish with a complete shaded circle, while all the G's of the genuine signatures are made with two separate movements of the pen. The G is propor¬ tionately high. It begins at the top, and moves down with a graceful left curve to near the base-line, when it makes a round turn and rises up half way to the top of the letter, and returns on a long closed line to near the base and finishes with an informal upward movement to the left, when the pen is lifted and carried to the top of the letter and the loop is made by a separate downward sweep to the right of the first clown-stroke, which it crosses at about its middle, and finishes with a free and informal sweep far out to the left of the staff. The e and o in the forged signature are of nearly equal size, tfie o finishing informally at the top and being discon¬ nected from the P following, while upon the genuine the e and o are markedly disproportionate as to size, the e having FORGED AND GENUINE SIGNATURES. 1 75 a conspicuous center loop, and the o being small and like an a in fori t In the forgery the P is in its form after the manner of the genuine P; but the forger seems to have quite overlooked the fact that the staff is a thin, light .y-like form connected with the preceding letter, while the top part of the letter is dwarfed to almost microscopic size and in strange dispropor¬ tion to the other portions of the signature. The remaining part of the forged signature is composed of heavy, formal letters which are not even fair imitations of the light, facile forms and movements of the genuine. Especially is the heavy, stiff, awkward terminal loop of the n in “Gordon” in very sharp contrast. The rubric underneath the forgery, in its tremulous, irregular, and broken lines, and heavy single blot at the center between its parts, is in striking contrast with the FORGED SIGNATURE. REDFIELD VERSUS REDFIELD. I 76 less conspicuous, smooth, graceful strokes under the gen¬ uine signature and the two light dots at the center. It will also be observed that after each of the genuine signatures is a period, which is not present after the forgery. After a full hearing of the case, the will was pronounced by the Chancellor to be a forgery by Henry Adams, one of the alleg-ed witnesses to the will. Redfield versus Redfield. — The difficulty that con¬ fronts a forger, exercising even phenomenal ingenuity in contriving and rare skill in executing a forgery, is well illus¬ trated in the case of Redfield v. Redfield, tried a few years since, at Syracuse, N. Y. A claim was presented to the executors of the estate, aggregating nearly $10,000, in the form of a receipt given many years before by the deceased to his son for railroad stock, to be held in trust for the son’s wife. The body of the receipt purported to have been written by one Z. C. Foot, an attorney, then deceased, and to bear the genuine signature of L. H. Redfield. The receipt was submitted to Mr. Foot’s law partner and others familiar with his writing, and all agreed that it was in Mr. Foot’s writing. This phase of the case seemed there¬ fore settled, when the receipt, with numerous genuine signa¬ tures of Redfield, was submitted to the writer for an opinion as to the genuineness of the signature upon the receipt. Upon microscopic examination, it was apparent that the writing in the body of the receipt was manufactured, as was also the signature. There was ample evidence that the writing in the body of the receipt had been first drawn lightly with pencil and then carefully written over with a pen. In something over ninety instances, portions of the pencil lines remained visible alongside of the ink lines, and over one hundred shades on the letters had been touched on after the first writing; besides, the forger, not being sufficiently acquainted with the variations of Mr. FORGERY ILLUSTRATED. 1 77 Foot’s habit in writing, repeated too exactly the forms of certain letters and words, thus imparting a typey and life¬ less effect to the general appearance of the writing. As a means of proof and illustration of the spurious character of the writing, the writer requested that a quantity of Mr. Foot’s genuine writing be furnished him, which being done, it was photo-lithographed, when words, phrases, and letters were cut therefrom and arranged and gummed together in the form of the alleged receipt, thus presenting Mr. Foot’s real handwriting as it should appear in the receipt if written by him. The variance between the gen¬ uine and forged writings, united with other internal evi¬ dence of forgery, was so plain that when confronted with the facts, the claimant withdrew the receipt and the case ended with a verdict in favor of the executors. On the next page is presented a facsimile of the forged receipt in juxtaposition with that made up from Foot’s writing. As specimens, eight of the retouched letters are indicated by numerals on the plate. We here give a microscopic representation of one of the over one hundred retouched shades on the forged writing. One of the interesting mistakes of the forger was in the method of making the capital /. Mr. Foot always commenced his at the base-line and made an unshaded staff on an up movement, which admitted of a shade on the finishing stroke at the center; but the forger commenced his / with an unshaded initial at the center and finished with a shaded down-stroke for the staff, touching in the shades on the finishing line at the center afterward, an example of which is shown in the greatly magnified representation of the I in the right margin. FORGED RECEIPT. RECEIPT MADE UP FROM FOOT’S WRITING. RECEIPT AS f6oT WOULD HAVE WRITTEN IT. i8o THE MURDOCK CASE. The Murdock Case. — This case was tried at Willows, California, during April and May, 1899. The jury dis¬ agreed, standing six to six. By a compromise settlement, the claimant received $50,000. William Murdock was a bachelor, and died at Willows on January 8, 1894, leaving an estate valued at $400,000, which was devised by a will to his sister. After the will had been probated, Mrs. Gawn Murdock, whose husband, Gawn, was a distant relative of William, presented to the executors a note for $100,000, payable twenty years after date, with interest at one per cent, per month, purporting to have been given to her by William on September 5, 1877. The note, with accumulated interest, amounted to $360,000. Mrs. Murdock alleged that the note was made payable to her on the account of her father- in-law, Sam Murdock, in part consideration of large sums of money he had from time to time loaned to William, and a further consideration of his (William’s) love and affection for Mrs. Murdock’s two boys, for whose benefit the note was made payable to her, as a sort of trustee. The history of the note, as related by Mrs. Murdock upon the witness-stand, from the time of its alleged sign¬ ing to its presentation to the executors for payment, is most remarkable. It was in part as follows: The note was wrapped or rolled around a pencil, and placed in a phial, which was corked and sealed. This phial was placed in a bottle and corked, and both were then put into a larger bottle, which was also corked. The whole was then placed in a tin can, topped with a saucer, and was buried in the barn. It remained buried for ten or eleven years, until 1887 or 1888. It was then dug up and taken to Sacra¬ mento, and was there seen by several people, as a proposed business transaction in which Mrs. Murdock was interested occasioned a possible use for the note. After this, the note was placed in possession of Gawn W. Murdock and put in a box, which box was placed in the vault of the Bank EVIDENCE OF FORGERY. l8 I of Orland. It remained^ there until 1S90, and was then taken by Mrs. Murdock to San Francisco, where, up to 1894, it was in the hands of a person there. From there it was placed in care of a party in Ohio, and came back into the possession of Mrs. Murdock, the plaintiff. To sustain the note, the prosecution introduced the plain¬ tiff, who testified that she had written the note at the request of Sam and William Murdock, and that William signed it in her presence. Gwan Murdock testified that William told him he had settled with Sam, and had given Mary (Gwan’s wife) a note for $100,000. Two wit¬ nesses swore to having seen the note in the possession of Mrs. Murdock at Sacramento in 1888, and other witnesses gave testimony that William had at sundry times admitted the genuineness of the note. The executors declined to pay the note, as to do so would absorb almost the entire estate. On the other hand, they denounced it as a forgery. The note was pho- tographed, and a copy, with numerous standard signatures, was submitted to the writer and other experts, who united in pronouncing the signature a forgery; and furthermore, that two signatures to deeds from William to Mary Helen Murdock, one given in 1872, and the other in 1890, had served as copies from which to make the forged signature to the note. The “ Wm.”on the note had evidently been traced from the “Wm.” on the deed of 1890. The “Murdock” embodied peculiarities in both the signatures to the deeds. The “ Wm.” upon the deed of 1890 was a wide depart¬ ure from the ordinary signature of Murdock, owing to a partial failure of the ink to flow from the pen in the first effort to make the initial part of the W, which Mr. Murdock invariably made by a separate down-stroke, as is shown in the first of these cuts. It was first made like the second 182 DISPUTED AND GENUINE SIGNATURES. cut; but the ink failing to How until the pen had moved down more than half the length of the stroke, (the dry pen-furrows being perfectly visible under a microscope, but not to the unaided eye,) he at once corrected it by making another stroke (see third cut, p. 181), causing a peculiar and unusual hook at the start. The second stroke intersected the first at its center (this is plain to the naked eye) and retraced much of the way the remainder of the first stroke, giving it an irregular and ragged appearance not habitual in Murdock’s signature, thus making it an exception in form and character among nearly one thousand genuine signatures that were introduced for comparison at the trial. Excepting the unseen dry furrows, the peculiar form and ragged line, resulting from an accident, were exactly repro¬ duced -upon the note. This will be seen by the accompany¬ ing cut, at the top of which is presented the signature to the note, followed by the signature to the two deeds which had been in the possession of the holder of the note since the time of their date. The entire word “Wm.” on the note was an exact counterpart of the same on the deed of 1890. Thus, if genuine, Wm. Murdock perpetrated on the note in 1877 the exact effect of an accident that did not GENUINE SIGNATURES. I 83 occur until 1890, and als^o made the same unusual dash under the m in “ Wm." If the signature to the note is not genuine, it was forged subsequent to the giving of the deed in 1890. Thirteen V Skid’s. 18T6. JHurdoek’-S V Si£>’s. j 1 % 11 > Jtfurdock’s 1891. 1890 . 184 MOREY-GARFIELD FORGED LETTER. years at least would have elapsed from the alleged making of the note, during which time it was found that Murdock’s signature had materially changed ; for in two hundred and seventy-three signatures written prior to December, 1879, every dash under the m in “ Wrn." was all to the right of the body of the W ’, while the terminal to the k swept down and far to the left under the signature. So if Murdock wrote the signature to the note in 1877 with an upturn for a terminal, he made use of a terminal and dash which did not manifest themselves in his signature until over two years after that time. It must have been a prenatal acci¬ dent. In 1890, the up terminal, like that in the note, occurred twenty-nine times in thirty-nine signatures, and the dash under the m in “Wm. ” reached into the body of the W eighteen times in thirty-nine signatures. (In the cut on page 183 is presented Murdock’s signature as written in 1876-77 and 1890-91.) Besides these peculiar facts, the signature to the note bore all the internal evidence of forgery by tracing and drawing, such as hesitating, tremulous, and retouched lines, and the abraded surface and torn fiber of the paper where the signature was written. The Morey-Garfield Letter.— Very few cases have arisen in this country in which the genuineness of hand¬ writing was the chief contention, and in which such momen¬ tous interests were at stake, as in the case of the forged “ Morey-Garfield Letter.” It was such as to arouse and alarm every citizen of the republic. A few days prior to the Presidential election of 1880, in which James A. Gar¬ field was the Republican nominee, there was published in a New York Democratic daily paper, a letter purporting to have been written to a Mr. H. L. Morey, who was alleged to have been connected with an organization of the cheap- labor movement. The letter, if written by Mr. Garfield, committed him in the broadest and fullest manner to the INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF FORGERY. 1 85 conservation of cheap labor through the importation of Chinese. At that time there was being waged a most wide¬ spread and determined movement on the Pacific Coast by the white-labor unions against the so-called Chinese cheap labor, and it was the obvious purpose of this letter to so arouse the labor vote, not alone on the Pacific Slope, but throughout the country, as to turn it against Garfield in the close States. Especially was this hoped for in Califor¬ nia and Oregon. The publication of the letter was so close to the time of the election that it was hoped that it would reach the Pacific Coast just in time to produce its damaging effect upon Garfield, with no time for counter-action, by proving its falsity. Immediately upon its publication it was submitted to the writer, who pronounced it, on its own internal evidence, a fabrication and fraud, while its comparison with Garfield’s letters and signature further proved it to be a forged simulation of his writing. On pages 186 and 187 are presented facsimiles of the forged letter and one written by General Garfield. The forged letter bore the following internal evidences of its fraudulent character : First — The three instances of bad spelling, viz., the words “ ecomoney ” and “ Companys ” in the eighth line, and “ religeously ” in line twelve, are hardly consistent with General Garfield’s education and experience. Second —The misplacing of the dot to the i in the signa¬ ture to the left of the f and over the r is a mistake quite natural to a hand unaccustomed to making it, but a very improbable and remarkable mistake for one to make in his own autograph. Third —The great and conspicuous variations in the size and form of letters. As a specimen instance, see the three t’s in the fifth line. Variations so great in such close connection seldom occur in anything like an educated and practiced hand. i86 FACSIMILE OF FORGED LETTER. Fourth —The very long, full, and differently formed loops in the first lines of the letter, as compared with those in the latter part, and their varying size and shape through- THE MOREY-GARFIELD FORGERY. 0^4^: a- \ . X — €aLs%jLa{_ CF^nr~ AnA-jLk'' 4*0 6t/~-Yb~. jYy/ ^ Jy EVIDENCE OF FORGERY. I 88 Sixth — The J in the signature has a slope inconsistent with the remainder of the signature and the surrounding writing. It is also too angular at the top, and too set and stiff throughout to be the result of a natural sweep of a trained hand. We may safely assume that if General Garfield wrote the “ Chinese Letter ” the previous ]anuary, there was at that time no motive to write it in any other than his ordi¬ nary and natural hand ; and, as we have before said, we know, by an extended and careful comparison, that the letter of denial is in his perfectly natural hand ; these two letters should, therefore, be consistent with each other. Are they so ? ^ First — Take the general pictorial effect and appearance of the two writings. They have slight general and no characteristic resemblance. Second —Observe the unconscious habit with reference to the base-line of the writing in the “ Chinese Letter.” Third —The t's in the “ Chinese Letter ” are of varia¬ ble length and shade, crossed in all kinds of ways, while in the other letter they are nearly uniform in height and shade, and are uniformly crossed, when single, by a short, deliberate line near the top and to the right of same, rarely touching the stem, th and tt only being crossed. Fourth —-The loops in the “ Chinese Letter ” touch the extremes for length and size, and are utterly without uni¬ formity or consistency, while they generally lop forward; and the f's and p's are considerably bowed. In the genuine letter the loops are rather short and thin, frequently closed, or single lines; as in the 6's, g's, andjr’s, there is very little tendency to lop forward, while f's and p's are nearly straight. Fifth — The general and unconscious habits of grouping and spacing the letters, as manifested in the two writings, have no similarity. In the “Chinese Letter” a peculiar COMPARISON CONTINUED. 189 and striking habit of grouping will be observed in on in “ Personal and confidential,” line one, and words “ should,” lines twelve and fifteen, and elsewhere, which does not accord with General Garfield’s habit. There is an appear¬ ance of this at the end of one or two lines in his letter, but it occurs from being crowded upon the margin of the origi¬ nal letter. Sixth — The writing in the “Chinese Letter” is more compact and angular than in the other.; then’s are entirely different in form and finish. Seventh — The variable slope of the writing in the two letters, that of the “ Chinese Letter ” being in the average about seven degrees more sloping than in the other. Eighth —-The signature to the “Chinese Letter” is a clumsy imitation of General Garfield’s autograph. Observe the stiff, formal initial line of the J —its sharp, angular turn at the top, absurd slope and general stiff appearance, while the shade is low down upon the stem, and compare with the free, flowing movement round turns and consistent slope of the same letter in his genuine autograph. We might extend the comparison, with like result, to all the letters in the signature, and to a multitude of other instances in the writing of the body of the letter, but want of space forbids. Many persons, and some professed experts, have re¬ marked what appeared to them striking and characteristic resemblances between the “ Chinese Letter ” and General Garfield’s writing. Before commenting upon these, we would remark that it should be borne in mind that if the letter is not in the genuine handwriting of General Garfield, it was written by some person whose purpose was to have it appear so to be. That being the case, we should naturally expect to find some, even more, forms than we do, having a resem¬ blance to those used by General Garfield. All these resemblances appear to us to be either copied or coinci- 190 THE CADET WHITTAKER CASE. dences in the use of forms. There are no coincidences of the unconscious writing habit, which clearly, to our mind, proves the “ Chinese Letter,” as General Garfield well characterizes it, a very clumsy effort to imitate his writing. I ndeed, the effort seems to be little more than an endeavor, on the part of the writer, to disguise his own hand, and copy a few of the general features of General Garfield’s writing, adding a tolerable imitation of his autograph. Cadet Whittaker Case. — Whittaker was a colored cadet, at the U. S. Military Academy, at West Point, New York. On the morning of April 6, 1880, he was found apparently unconscious in his room, bound and gagged, with his ears, hands, and feet bleeding from cuts which he allegecl he had chiefly received while resisting an assault in the dark, from unknown assailants, presumably fellow cadets. Upon restoration to consciousness, he produced a note of warning which he alleged he had received two days before, cautioning him against some supposed bodily injury. Sensational reports of the supposed outrage were circulated by the press throughout the country, and an investigation was demanded. The alleged note of warning was deemed an important clew, as coming from some one who at least would have some knowledge of the perpetrators of the outrage. The cadets were assembled and all required to write from dictation a note containing substantially the same words as did the note of warning, and sign their names. Written pages were also torn from the exercise-books of many of the cadets, thus giving a specimen of writing by every cadet, and by many, two. p'ive handwriting experts were separately called to West Point, including the writer; into the hands of each was placed the note of warning with three hundred and seven different pieces of writing, which were identified only by a number, all names having been cut from the several writ- o NOTE OF WARNING AND WHITTAKER'S WRITING. 1 9 1 / ings, thus precluding any possible exercise of prejudice or favor on the part of the experts. With astonishing una¬ nimity the writings selected as being the same as the dis¬ guised hand in the note of warning proved to have been written by Whittaker himself. U 0) 73 o - 1 c a; 3 .2 ^ u ^ a D C ■i 3 o O g * &'g a S J! Cm - , Cm 0^0 O M ja g 0^-5 C oj V j-j r r ^ T 3 H 3 cd CL) # c/> 'rt ^ S * •° E P u <>- ^ t! >.”2 .Q O •o * t-, C /3 ^ O £ a 3 S 3 3 ■ o O .M ^ X *i 0) VI The above is a copy of the note of warning, made up from letters and words taken from Whittaker’s writing, the numerals indicating the number of the exhibit and line from which each was taken. A court of inquiry was convened, before which the experts and other witnesses gave testimony respecting the alleged outrage, and after a careful review and analysis of the testimony reported that Whittaker’s injuries were self-inflicted, and that the so-called note of warning was written by Whittaker to himself. This finding by the court of inquiry was unsatisfactory to Whittaker and his friends, and they succeeded in having a court-martial convened in New York City, in February, 1881, which continued its sessions for nearly four months, and unanimously found Whittaker guilty of perpetrating the alleged outrage upon himself and writing the note of warning. The Alleged Collum-Blaisdell Forgery.— This case will justly rank among the celebrated criminals trials of this country, alike for the large sum involved (nearly $300,000), the high standing of the accused, and the herculean efforts to save him from a crime of which he was confessedly guilty. COLLUM -BLAISDELL ALLEGED FORGERY. I 93 Mr. John T. Blaisdell was one of the pioneers of the city of Minneapolis. He was possessed of a great fortune, and had formerly employed Collum as his attorney, in which capacity he had an abundant opportunity to famil¬ iarize himself with Mr. Blaisdell’s business, as he was most implicitly trusted by the millionaire. At different times Mr. Blaisdell had accommodated Mr. Collum by indorsing notes amounting to some ten or fifteen thousand dollars. Meeting one day an official of one of the banks of the city with which he had dealings, Mr. Blais¬ dell was asked how much of Collum’s paper he had indorsed. He replied that he had indorsed something less than fifteen thousand dollars. To his astonishment, the banker replied that his bank alone held a very much larger sum than that. An investigation was at once set on foot, when it was found that notes having Mr. Blaisdell’s indorsement were out¬ standing to an aggregate sum of $283,000. A conference of Mr. Blaisdell’s friends and bankers hold¬ ing the forged notes was called, at which Mr. Collum was present and confronted with the charge of forgery. He confessed to the forgery and expressed his readiness to be taken to the penitentiary. But subsequently, after consult¬ ing with his friends and attorneys, Mr. Collum denied that this confession was true, and employed four of the shrewdest lawyers to be had to defend him in a trial for forgery. On the stand Mr. Blaisdell denied having written the signatures to the notes on which the indictment was based. Four experienced handwriting experts and five bank cashiers pronounced the questioned signatures to be forgeries. Against this mass of positive testimony were several alleged experts and seven bank officers (all but two of the latter personally interested in the paper in dispute), who declared the signature genuine. The trial lasted over four weeks, and resulted in a disagreement of the jury. No attempts have ever been made to recover on the notes from Blaisdell as indorser. 194 EXHIBITS FOR COMPARISON. We herewith present two groups of signatures, one of Mr. Blaisdell’s and another of the alleged forgeries. Group i represents three admittedly genuine signatures of Mr. Blaisdell, which were used as standards for com¬ parison by the witnesses for the State. It will be noticed that the down-strokes are uniformly broad, shaded lines. While they indicate a hand that is heavy and unpracticed, they are fairly uniform and consistent with each other, and are in all essential respects a harmonious family group. S.y.Mu'hkti, 12) ALLEGED FORGERIES. COMPARISON <3F THE WRITING. 195 Group 2 represents three of the alleged forged signa¬ tures. Compare the down-lines in these with those in Group 1. It will be noticed that in this group, unlike the others, there is no uniformity of shade whatever, some being very broad, while others are narrow and light. In this respect, therefore, they are patently inconsistent and inhar¬ monious as between themselves, and when compared as a family group they do not at all fraternize with Group 1. Note the hard terminal lines as compared with those in Group 1. Note the light, wavy lines in the first stroke on the a s and d's in Group 2, as compared with the heavy, firm corresponding lines in Group 1. Also the staffs of the d’s in Group 1, which are single shaded strokes, while in the other (as is more particularly apparent upon examination with a glass), they consist of light interlacing up-and-down lines, while the apparent shading is merely a flowing over of ink between these lines. The first signature of Group 2 is a copy of the alleged forged signature which was the basis of the indictment. It was the unanimous opinion of the experts for the prosecu¬ tion that the alleged forged signature was made by tracing it over a genuine signature, hence in its general appearance as to length, slant, spacing and outline of letters it would necessarily conform closely to Mr. Blaisdell’s average signature. As a matter of fact this is the case, but it does not follow that a tracing would preserve the quality of the line, shading, and many of the more delicate character¬ istics of the genuine signature, and it was upon most patent discrepancies in these respects that the experts reached the conclusion, beyond any sort of doubt, that these signatures were spurious. As we have said, it is difficult to develop these points perfectly by comparison of cuts, as, of course, the quality of line cannot be reproduced to represent accurately the effect in the original signature. If the reader will take a piece of glass, place upon it a signature written on ordinary non-trans- 196 WHY TRACINGS ARE NOT EXACT COPIES. parent writing paper and over this another piece of paper of the same quality, and hold it up in front of a light, he will have no difficulty in seeing the general outline of the signature, and by taking pen or pencil can dupli¬ cate that signature precisely as to general direction and outline. Two thicknesses of paper, however, will prevent, even by the use of the strongest light, the detection of all the slight peculiarities of waver and tremor, and the minute changes of direction, retracing of lines, the nice variations of shade as to degree and location that invariably occur, especially in such signatures as these in question; nor can he with any degree of accuracy simulate the quality of line which is an individual characteristic of every writer. Mr. Blaisdell’s signatures are conspicuous for a certain tremor, as will be seen by reference to any of them here presented. The artful forger, therefore, in simulating these signatures, would not fail to try to simulate the frequent minor changes of direction which this tremor produces. As they are too minute and delicate to be observed and simu¬ lated by tracing, he must rely on his own ingenuity to put them in so as to resemble the genuine. Now, it is in these precise particulars that the strongest points were made by the experts for the State. For instance, in the forged signature to which we have referred, are noted, under the microscope, eighty-seven distinct changes of direction of line or tremors. In the five genuine signatures that follow, the changes of direction are twenty in the first, twenty-five in the second, fourteen in the third, thirty in the fourth, and twenty-five in the fifth, making an average of twenty-two and two fifths — eighty-seven against twenty-two and two fifths. Very decidedly, then, the forger overdid this matter of tremor. There is also to the expert’s practiced eye just as wide a difference between the genuine and the spurious in the pictorial effect and in the quality of line before noted. / THE BOTKIN POISONING CASE. 1 97 The Botkin Case. — The peculiar atrocity of this crime marks it as one of the causes cdlebres of this country. The paramour of Mrs. Botkin, who resided at San Francisco, California, was one Dunning, whose wife and child lived temporarily with her father at Dover, Delaware. Dun¬ ning went East, and after his arrival there had written to Mrs. Botkin that he proposed establishing himself in New York and intended to provide a home there for his wife and child. Shortly after Dunning’s departure from San Francisco, Mrs. Dunning received several anonymous letters in a disguised hand, purporting to come from friends in that city, recounting the amours of Dunning, and advis¬ ing her to secure a divorce from him, for which (as was set forth in the anonymous letters) there was ample ground. This scheme did not succeed. A few months later Mrs. Dunning received through the mail a box of candy, of which she and several members of the household par¬ took. Four of the partakers were soon taken violently ill, Mrs. Dunning, her sister, and two children. In a very short time, the two women died ; the children finally recov¬ ered. The symptoms were proven to be those of arsenic poisoning. A post-mortem examination was held, chemical analyses of the contents of the stomachs made, and the remaining candy was proven to contain arsenic. The wrap¬ per of the box, containing the superscription, a short note placed inside with the candy, and two of the long anony¬ mous letters had fortunately been preserved. The box was traced to San Francisco, and the place of its purchase was discovered. Circumstances soon developed that placed Mrs. Botkin under suspicion. Specimens of her handwriting were procured and, with the anonymous letters, were placed in the hands of experts for comparison, who reported that they were all written by the same person. Arrest and indictment followed, and in December, 1898, after a protracted trial and an able defense, she was con¬ victed and sentenced to prison for life. 198 THE KENNEDY MURDER CASE. The identity of her handwriting with that upon the wrapper of the box and the note inclosed, was chiefly instru¬ mental in her conviction. Below we present, in juxtaposition, a few of the most striking characteristic forms of her genuine and disguised writing, as they were presented to the court and jury. Handwriting experts, Carl Eisenschimel and Theodore Kytka, together with the writer, testified for the prosecution. Anonymous and Disguised. Mrs. Botkin’s Writing. 3>§>ppf)(p %-iPL r i4~y- PjDp P (2€0(££e 13 a Wi'frPfc? 8%k y ^ F- ,,.: - JaX/m, r ,, Nos. 1226 are from check ; the other numbers are from Kennedy’s writing, for comparison. HUNTER-LONG FORGERIES. 205 his exposure, arrest, and downfall; and it is believed that he went to his home in Staten Island, made the lead-pipe bludgeon with which the murder was committed, having arranged the Grand Hotel appointment in order to get pos¬ session of the bogus check by whatever means that might prove necessary. Her satchel was cut open in the apparent search for the check; but the important document was hidden safely under her corset, where it was found by the coroner when making the autopsy. After a trial notable in the annals of New York criminal jurisprudence, Dr. Kennedy was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. The handwriting first directed attention to Dr. Kennedy, and furnished the strongest link in the chain of evidence against him. The illustrations shown herewith are fac¬ similes of the face of the check, its indorsement, and the “ E. Maxwell and Wife ” note, together with characteristic bits of the standard and disputed writing juxtaposed, to show at a glance the points to be compared. The photo¬ graphs were made by Dr. Ernest J. Lederle, City Chemist, under direction of Mr. Kinsley, who arranged them for reproduction, and are excellent models of what such photo¬ graphs should be both in arrangement and handling. Hunter-Long Forgeries.— James and John Hunter were brothers. They and James Long were natives of the north of Ireland and were schoolboy chums. They came to Philadelphia over fifty years ago, where they engaged in business. The Hunters were industrious, economical and enterprising, and in their joint business of manufactur¬ ing were so prosperous as to amass a fortune estimated at over a million of dollars. For integrity they stood above reproach. In fact, John Hunter was known by the sobriquet of “ Honest John Hunter,” and when, a few years since, frauds were discovered in the management of the muni¬ cipal affairs of the city, and a committee of citizens organ- 206 IIUNTER-LONG FORGERIES. ized for the purpose of correcting frauds and abuses, John Hunter was selected by the committee to be the receiver of taxes. Being thus called from his office for a great part of the time, the business management of the Hunters devolved upon James, who engaged in large outside speculations, in which he sustained very heavy losses, causing embarrass¬ ment. He applied for relief to his old schoolboy friend and chum, James Long, who also had been exceedingly prosperous, first as a manufacturer and afterward as a banker, through which he had become one of the solid financial men of Philadelphia. James Hunter, in appealing to his friend Long, represented that he had invested large sums in promising real estate, and that he required only temporary aid to .enable him to realize large profits on his investment, and thus induced Mr. Long to give him accommodation notes for large amounts, aggregating, in 1876, over $100,000. At this time, in consequence of the difficulty experienced in collecting the security notes given by Hunter, Mr. Long became doubtful as to Hunter’s financial standing, and urged that the amount of the loans be constantly reduced. In his embarrassment, Mr. Hunter had fallen into the habit of meeting the notes, as they fell due, by issuing new notes in their stead ; but Mr. Long demanded that each new note be made for a less amount than the one which it was to redeem, Mr. Hunter advancing the difference. By this process, the aggregate of the accommodation notes due Mr. Long from the Hunters was reduced, in 1884, as Mr. Long supposed, to between $50,000 and $60,000. At a meeting of the trustees of the Eighth National Bank of Philadelphia, at which Mr. Long, as vice-president and trustee, was present, he was astonished at hearing sev¬ eral of his notes, in favor of James and John Hunter, called off as offered for discount. These, from their dates and amounts, he knew he had never signed. Investigation followed at once, when to Mr. Long’s astonishment and POINTS IN THE TRIAL. 207 chagrin the notes proved to be forgeries perpetrated by his friend, James Hunter. The worthless paper amounted in the aggregate to over $400,000, and the culprit hastily fled from the city to avoid arrest. Mr. Long immediately redeemed all of the genuine outstanding notes which he had given to the Hunters, to the amount of between $50,000 and $60,000. Of course, as the forged notes were presented, he denied his signature and declined payment. Subsequently, suit was brought by the Union National Bank of Mt. Holly against the Ninth National Bank of Philadelphia, to recover the money paid for one of the forged notes, which it had purchased as an investment. The suit was brought on the allegation that the note was a for¬ gery sold by the Ninth National Bank. That institution defended the suit on the ground that the signature was genuine. We quote from a report by the Philadelphia Press :— “ Nearly the entire morning was consumed by experts Daniel T. Ames, of New York, and Thomas May Peirce, of this city, in testifying that the signature to the note in suit was a forgery. Mr. Ames took with him to the witness-stand a big valise. He handed the court clerk his card and affirmed. He is considered one of the best experts in the country. It was through his testimony that ex-Cadet Whittaker was suspended from West Point. When the Morey letter was published, Mr. Ames was the first to pronounce it a forgery, as was afterwards proven. He told Mr. Fletcher in a calm, dignified, and soft voice that he was a ‘ teacher, author and publisher ’ concerning the science of writing, and was an expert in ‘ questioned writing. ’ He unfastened his valise and brought forth a microscope which looked so much like a Gatling-gun as to cause Mr. Fletcher to ask if it ‘ went off.’ ‘ No, sir,’ replied Mr. Ames, stopping in his work of adjusting the lenses and looking at Mr. Fletcher in a patronizing way; ‘ not while I ’m handling it.’ The answer caused a laugh at Mr. Fletcher’s expense. Taking the alleged forged note and a genuine signature of Mr. Long, the expert traced on a blackboard a copy of each, and explained the differ¬ ences to the jury and let them see for themselves what the signatures looked like under the lenses. The points he made were, that while 208 REASONS OF THE EXPERT. there was a good attempt made to simulate the general characteristics of Mr. Long’s writing, yet there was a decided failure; that the forger was so studious in his efforts, in some details, that he made a blunder in not writing closely upon the base-line, as was the fact in all of Mr. Long’s signatures; that the forgery showed a fine knowledge of the science of writing, which is not seen in Mr. Long’s ; that under a micro¬ scope the writing was laborious, and the unequal distribution of the ink showed that the signature was written by ‘ hitches,’ and not as when written freely by Mr. Long; that nervousness was evident, and that the point to the terminal of the .r was made with two marks of the pen.” Immediately after the close of Mr. Ames’s testimony (presumably from being convinced that the signature was forged), the President of the Ninth National Bank, who sat in the court-room, announced his readiness to pay the amount of the note with interest, which he immediately did in open court, and the suit ended without the defense calling a witness. This ended all efforts of the holders of the forced notes for their collection. Testifying by experts in the courts of Pennsylvania was especially difficult from the fact that under the law of that State an expert was not permitted to make any comparison between the disputed handwriting and the genuine, being only allowed to speak from the internal indications of forgery. # The following reasons were presented by Mr. Ames for believing the signature to be a forgery. By comparison of the writing in the body of the note with that of the signa¬ ture, he believed that it was all written by one hand. This was apparent from the fact that certain characteristics of the signature were coincident with corresponding letters in the body of the note. Yet, while the signature appeared to have been written by the same hand as that of the body, there were many differences which he could not harmonize with the ordinary * The law has since been so modified as to permit expert comparison of disputed writing with that proved to the satisfaction of the court to be genuine. PECULIAR ILLUSTRATION OF THE FORCE OF HABIT. 209 habit of the writer as manifested in the filling of the body of the note. For illustration —in the body of the note were two J 's which were made nearly straight and central upon the base-line, indicating that this was the natural habit of the writer, while in the signature was ay of another type, and made above the base-line. His inference was, that the J in the signature was an imitation of another writer, and that the forger, when departing from his cus¬ tomary habit of making a long straight J central upon the base-line, in the attempted imitation, by sheer force of habit carried the connecting line into the a considerably above the base-line, as will be seen in the examples. This was the fact with all the forged signatures. The form of the a in the signature was the same as in “ James” in the body of the note. The m was of the same character as the m in the date¬ line of the note. The n in “ Lonof ” was of the same char- acter as the n in the word “ Hunter” and elsewhere in the body of the note. The t in the signature was in the main the same as that in the body of the note; but to the letter was appended a projection which was not in accordance with the naturally written t in the body of the note; hence the inference that it was a simulation. Moreover, it was made in two parts, having first been ended abruptly and then pieced out, in order to give it the point, which indicated that it had been manufactured in imitation of another form. Theg' in “ Long” was a very long full loop ending with a very formal hook, while in the body of the note the loops are short. Hence the inference that the g in “ Long ” is a simulated letter. The whole signature is written considerably above the base-line. In Mr. Ames’s opinion, this might result from two causes: First, it is apparent from an examination of the naturally written /’s in the body of the note that it was the habit of the writer to divide these letters about equally above and below the base-line, and to join the / to the a CONCLUSIONS OF EXPERT EVIDENCE. 21 I at the middle of the staff, the a resting upon the base-line. The fact was that the writer in simulating a signature wherein the J was made entirely above the base-line was lead, by force of habit, to unconsciously join the a to the J at its center, which was considerably higher up than when made in connection with the habitual form of the J , thus raising the a above the base-line. Beginning thus, the entire signature was continued in that manner. Second, the forger being particularly intent upon the formation of his letters and their combination, would be quite likely to overlook the mere circumstance of the relation of the original signature respecting the base-line, and fail to properly follow it. These were the principal reasons presented by Mr. Ames for his belief that the signature to the note was a forgery. By comparison of the genuine signature of Mr. Long with the forged, the evidence is greatly strengthened, viz: It will be observed by reference to the cuts that Long’s J is so adjusted to the a as to place it and the entire signature nearly upon the base-line, his a itself being a very long, narrow closed letter, while in the forgery it is larger, fuller, and more open. Long’s ms and n s begin with light strokes closed the whole length, the last stroke being longer and heavier than those preceding, while those in the for¬ gery are the reverse, the first strokes being the longest, and the lines closing only half way. Hunter was the more systematical writer , and overshot Long in the quality of the writing. This is a common difficulty when a more skilled writer attempts to forge the writing of one less skilled ; and, vice versa , an unskilled hand cannot rise above its own art to simulate the writing of one far superior to it in artistic skill. These facts are often the uncovered tracks by which forgery is trailed and demonstrated. It will also be observed that Hunter followed his own more upright slant in the forgeries. 212 TIIE ACME OF THE FORGER’S SKILL. Raised Draft by Charles Becker.— It is probable that no finer exhibition of the former’s skill has ever been seen in this country than that represented in the accom¬ panying cut of a draft raised by the notorious forger, Charles Becker, from twelve dollars to twenty-two thousand dollars. A draft was procured from the Bank of Woodland, California, on the Crocker-Woolworth Bank of San Francisco for twelve dollars, and then raised to twenty-two thousand, and gold coin to that amount was received on the draft from the Nevada National Bank, also of San Fran¬ cisco , where one of the srang - of formers associated with Becker was well known, having been for some time a depositor with the bank. Through the persistent efforts of the Bankers’ Associa¬ tion, aided by Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, the forgery was traced to Becker and his associates, all of whom were arrested and convicted, except Becker, the jury before whom he was tried having disagreed. At the opening of a second trial he pleaded guilty, and gave a full history of the forgery and the method by which it was perpetrated. He received a sentence of two years’ imprisonment at San Quentin, California. The method of performing the work was most ingenious, and was executed with such consummate skill as to well- nigh defy detection by the most skilled and astute banker. Indeed, but for the outside facts it is highly probable that no banker would have ever observed anything wrong with the draft. But when it was returned to the Bank of Wood¬ land, calling for twenty-two thousand dollars in place of twelve dollars, for which it was originally issued, the fact that a forgery had been committed was obvious. The method, however, remained largely a mystery until it was discovered by most elaborate study under a microscope. The original draft had all the usual safeguards against forgery or alteration, being upon safety paper, — that is, being printed over a sensitive tint, which was supposed to FACSIMILE OF THE RAISED DRAFT. 2I 4 METHOD OF FORGERY. inevitably show the slightest erasure or change made upon its surface. Also, the figures expressive of the amount of the draft were stamped out in two places by a complicated perforating machine supposed to be impossible of imitation by hand, while the writing expressive of the amount in the body of the draft was in a strong, bold hand. The perfora¬ tions show indistinctly in the cut except where they are on the shade of each end of the lettering of the name of the bank. The difficulty was not alone in imitating the work of the stamping-machine, but to get over and utilize as far as possible the perforations already there. The dollar-mark could stand; the figure i must be changed to a figure 2\ the second figure 2 could stand; and then must be added the ciphers for the larger amount. The first thing done was to cover the space occupied by the / with a most delicate and skillfully applied patch of paper so like that of the paper of the draft as to pass unnoticed. This done, the new perforations were to be made. This was done with a steel needle the exact size of the original holes, broken square across. The draft was placed upon a very hard surface, and the needle was carefully placed upon the spot of a desired puncture and then struck a light blow with a ham¬ mer, which made a clean-cut hole. The figures and periods were thus stamped out in exact duplicate of those made by the machine. When this was done, the figures indicating the amount to the right in the body of the draft were changed — the / to a 2, by simply adding the characteristic top of a 2 to the / and a horizontal loop at its base, the straight line of the /, under a close observation, remaining unchanged in the present The small ciphers for the cents were then removed by applying acid, and the required ciphers were put in their place. The last three letters of the word “twelve ” and a line drawn in to fill the unoccupied space between that and the word “ dollars ” were also carefully removed with acid, and the changed surface of the paper was restored by skillfully painting it over with a brush. PEN AND BRUSH USED. 2I 5 The letters nty were added to the Twe that remained of “ Twelve ” and the words “ two thousand ” were written in by a skillful use of a brush and pen, and the job was done. Notwithstanding the consummate skill of the forger, it will be observed, by comparing the added writing with what remains of the original writing, that the forger’s habit was injected into the place of that of Dean. Note the ns in “ Twenty ” and “ thousand.” They are perfectly formed us with straight down-lines, while the n in Dean has two curved blind loops—in fact, are double ee’s. Also, Becker wrote on his own slant, which was much more upright than Dean’s, and the entire character of his writing is more set and formal, betraying the delicate touch and finish of the artist rather than the informal dash of the busy cashier. CHAPTER XVII. THE TRIAL OF ROLAND B. MOLINEUX IN NEW YORK FOR THE MUR¬ DER OF MRS. KATHARINE J ADAMS, BY MEANS OF POISON SENT THROUGH THE UNITED STATES MAIL. No criminal trial in this country has extended over a longer period of time, or has been more fiercely contested, than that ol Roland B. Molineux, just closed in New York. The trial commenced with the impaneling of the jury on November 14, 1899, and continued until February 11th, 1900, when a verdict of guilty was rendered, which now means electrocution, or death in the electric chair. All that wealth and high social and political influence could possibly do in behalf of the accused was done. In the way of a history of the case we can do no better than to present it in the words of Assistant District- Attorney Osborne in his very able opening address to the jury. He said:— “ Oil December 28, 1898, this community was shocked by the dis¬ covery that a woman had been poisoned. She was a woman who had lived on the west side of New York with her daughter, a Mrs. Rogers, with a grown son, and there was an occupant in the house— Harry S. Cornish — a connection, by marriage, of the family. They had for¬ merly lived together in Hartford, Connecticut. “On December 24th of last year, just the day before Christmas, Harry S. Cornish, at the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, received a pack¬ age through the mail. This package was taken by him to his desk, and in the presence of other persons he opened it. “It was a Christmas present, no doubt, he thought. There was a Tiffany box and a blank envelope. Inclosed in the box was a silver article, a bottle-holder, and in it was what purported to be a bromo- THE POISON PACKAGE. 217 seltzer bottle. There were some pieces of paper in the box, and the box itself was wrapped up in manilla paper. On it was written the address, ‘ Mr. Harry Cornish, Knickerbocker Athletic Club, Madison Ave. and Fourty-fifth St., New York City.’ “ Cornish carried this box and its contents home on the evening of December 27th. These dumb instruments one by one will make up this story. It was at the request of Mrs. Adams’s only daughter, Mrs. Rogers, that Cornish gave to Mrs. Adams, at the time when she was preparing the breakfast,—this good old woman who was acting as the cook next morning,—the fatal dose, and after partaking of it she com¬ plained of a bitter taste, and Cornish tasted it himself. Mrs. Adams was immediately taken alarmingly ill. “Then the doctors were hurriedly called, and within half an hour afterward Mrs. Adams was dead. Cornish went to the Knickerbocker Athletic Club. His life at one time was almost despaired of Here was a man — Cornish-—who preserved the bottle-holder, the envelope, the paper, the writing, — he took good care of it,—and in broad daylight he had administered the fatal dose. “ I wish to say here that if there ever was a man in this wide world who has been thoroughly investigated by myself and by Captain Mc- Clusky, the chief of detectives, it is this Harry S. Cornish, and I will say that we satisfied .ourselves that Cornish, who gave the fatal dose, did not do so with any guilty intent. “ Now, let us see what Captain McClusky had in his possession at the time he started out to investigate the mystery surrounding the murder of Mrs. Katharine J. Adams. He knew that a woman had been poi¬ soned ; that Cornish gave her that poison ; and he had before him a bottle-holder, an envelope and box, and the written address upon the wrapper of the poison package; from those articles he must find the poisoner. “ How did he proceed? Captain McClusky investigated each object step by step. And I say to you, gentlemen, that if you will follow me in the evidence which Captain McClusky gave to me, you will each one of you become a judicial Frankenstein, and, little by little, you will be able to construct the man who murdered this woman. “In this evidence you will see the body, the soul, the features of this poisoner, and if you do not, then you will acquit this defendant. This poisoner struck from a distance. He said to himself, ‘ It is impos¬ sible for anybody to trace this poison to me. I have so disguised the handwriting that nobody can trace that to me. The silver bottle- holder and the poison were obtained in such a way as not to be traced to me.’ 2l8 A RARE POISON. “ Cyanide of mercury is a chemical rarity. There are only thre- cases oi such poison on record. You may be sure at the outset that you cannot trace that cyanide of mercury to him, nor that silver bottle- holder, because they are monuments toward a pathway on which one can read the way of the poisoner. “ But this poisoner no doubt felt that he had discovered the secret to poison without detection. Captain McClusky had no difficulty in tracing the bottle-holder to the store of Hartegen & Company, Newark, New Jersey; but you will not be able to trace the body of the poisoner to that store. You must be able to trace the mind of the poisoner to the store where the bottle-holder was bought. It was traced to Newark. In order to trace the cyanide of mercury you must find out who uses this poison. “ Now, in order to find the man who sent this bottle-holder and the cyanide of mercury, you must find the man who had a business in Newark, and who knew about cyanide of mercury, and who handled it in his, business. That is the kind of a man Captain McClusky had to look for. Consequently, you must look for a chemist who is engaged in the manufacture of colors. “ The man who wrote the address upon the poison package did not try to imitate anybody else’s characteristics, but he did try to leave out of his writing all his own characteristics. Did he do so ? That is the question for us to decide. “ The District-Attorney is going to make his garment out of the stitches which he dropped. In writing the address the poisoner dropped the first stitch and left enough of his characteristics to show us who he is. “We must now look fora man who had a motive to dispose of Cornish. We must look for a man who lived partly in Newark and partly in New York. At once everybody began to investigate as to who it was who hated Cornish — who had a long-standing hatred for him. If you gentlemen of the jury will, after hearing all of this evi¬ dence, say we will not convict, then what will you say to the criminals at large? “ You would then turn society over to the criminals. But fortunately this is not the case, because this poisoner dropped more stitches,—yes, a spool of thread,—and this case, which at one time was a mystery, is actually the simplest case I have prepared in my life; and if you don’t say so, I shall be very much disappointed. “ Now, Captain McClusky had a talk with the physician who attended Cornish, and who had treated another man who had suffered from cya¬ nide of mercury poisoning, and this man was Henry C. Barnet. BARNET ANOTHER VICTIM OF POISON. 219 “ Here is another name in this case. Who is Barnet? How is it that his name is introduced into this case? Barnet lived at the Knicker¬ bocker Athletic Club. Barnet received poison mixed with Kutnow powder, from which he had died only a few weeks prior to the death of Mrs. Adams. Barnet received this poison in the mail. Now, here we have the use of the mail, cyanide of mercury, and the Knickerbocker Athletic Club. “ There is not a man on the earth so stupid w r ho would not know that the same man who perpetrated one crime committed the other. ‘ ‘ If this defendant does not fit the description I give of this poisoner, then Mr. Weeks [the attorney for the prisoner] ought to be pleased. I tell you, produce the whole garment and you will find the guilty man. On December 20, 1898, there was a letter sent to the Kutnow people asking that a sample of their powder be sent to H. Cornish at No. 1620 Broadway. Now we see the light of day. “ This spool of thread begins to unwind. He wrote to the Marsden Remedy Company, in this city, and in asking for treatment gave the company a complete description of himself. He inclosed five dollars, and asked them to send to him the remedy, and they sent to him a blank form which he had to fill out; and here we have the man who committed these double crimes fully describing himself. “There is no doubt that the man who killed Barnet also sent the poison to Cornish. Everybody must see that. Now, what have we on this paper which this poisoner filled out?” “I object!” shouted Mr. Weeks. “It is unfair to this client for the District-Attorney to make statements of this character in the pres¬ ence of the jury.” (Recorder Goff replied that the jury must not be prejudiced against the defendant by any statement of the District-Attorney; it is not for them to infer that the person who poisoned Barnet poisoned Mrs. Adams.) Mr. Osborne continued :—“Now, I must find this man — the poi¬ soner. Here the diagnosis blank shows that he gave his age as thirty-one. We cannot look for anybody who is over thirty-one or who is under thirty-one. If this prisoner at the bar does not fit in that respect, we do not want him. I must show you a man of that age. “ Then we find that the man says he was contemplating matrimony. Now, we must find such a man. All married men are excluded. Then there is a query, ‘Was there any consumption in the family?’ which is answered ‘Yes.’ We must find a man in whose family there was con¬ sumption. “ Then we must find a man who measures thirty-seven inches around 220 CHARACTERISTICS IN WRITING. the chest and thirty-two inches around the waist. Smaller men or bigger men are out of the question. Then there is a query as to complexion —answer, ‘Yellow.’ Look for such a man. Then we must find a man who mails his letters at the General Postoffice at 5 P.M. on week-days and earlier on Saturdays.” (Mr. Osborne announced that he would now go into the matter of hand¬ writing. He called one of his assistants, who started to put up an easel stand, upon which a blackboard was to be placed. Mr. Weeks objected to Mr. Osborne’s illustrating to the jury upon a blackboard matters in connection with handwriting, and Recorder Goff sustained him.) “ I wish to say [continued Mr. Osborne, shouting] that any expert in this country — every expert in America — including the expert who appears here for the defense, will testify that the ‘ H. Cornish ’ and the ‘ H. C. Barnet ’ letters and the address on the poison package were written by the same man. “ The experts will tell you the peculiarities of the handwriting — they will very plainly show you that there are enough characteristics left to prove that all three (the address upon the poison package, the Barnet and Cornish letters) were written by the same man; and if I do not show all of this to be a fact, then this defendant will walk out of court a free man. ‘‘When you and I fail to write like a copybook, then you and I show our characteristics. Now, take the letter a, for instance — a, in the word ‘trial.’ [See cut No. 7, on page 228. Mr. Osborne wrote a letter a with his fingers in the air. ] The prisoner wrote ‘ trial ’ thus — ‘tri-al.’ There was a break between the i and the a. He does not make the upward stroke to connect the i and the a, but simply stops at the letter z, and then begins a new a, as though there were two words ‘tri’- ‘ah’ In ‘confidential’ [See cut No. 8, on page 230.] we find there is a break between the i and the d. In ‘ which ’ there is a break between the z and the c. Thus you see there is always a break after an z when it is before an a, c, d, and g, as in ‘ oblige. “ Look,—look, I say, at all the handwriting since Adam or the Phoe¬ nicians, or whoever invented handwriting, and show me a man who makes these breaks. It is the most astonishing thing. Now, the man who wrote these letters did not know he had these characteristics, and if I find the man who wrote the Barnet letter I have the man who intended to kill Cornish. “Then we find that he has three ways of writing the word ‘oblige.’ [See cuts No. 3, page 224; No. 4, page 225; and No. 10, page 232.] And if I don’t find the man who has three ways of writing the word ‘oblige,’ then I do not find the man who is guilty of this murder. BARNET AND CORNISH WRITING. 221 When he writes the word' oblige’ slowly, he writes it ‘ obli-ge,’ with a break between the i and the g. When he is in a hurry he writes ‘oblige’ ‘obli-g” with a little tick at the end, indicating the c, but does not write the l*x, Jl 5 rh<*s£- ~ V ^ a. v Asx*** # FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE BORDEREAU WHICH DREYFUS DENIES WRITING. dreyfus’s genuine writing. 2 39 “ That was all. There was no address, no date, no signature. The documents referred to in the memorandum were scarcely of vital impor¬ tance ; but, naturally, the French Government was interested to find out whether its secret orders were being systematically conveyed to the Germans. ‘ ‘ Armed with the clew provided by the ‘ bordereau, ’ the secret agents of the Ministry set about the task of finding its author. The writing of all the persons from whom it could possibly have emanated was examined and compared with it. It was finally announced by Major Du Paty de Clam that the writing in the ‘ bordereau ’ coincided with that of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, stagiary in the second bureau at the general staff corps. “ Though Dreyfus was under surveillance from this time, he was not at once placed under formal arrest. The ‘bordereau,’ together with authenticated specimens of the handwriting of the accused man, was first submitted to two French handwriting experts for their opinion. FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF A GENUINE LETTER OF DREYFUS. 240 THE EXPERTS. “ These authorities — M. Gobert and M. Bertillon — after a thorough examination of the papers submitted to them, delivered opinions exactly opposite. Gobert decided that the two could not have been written by the one man, while Bertillon announced himself convinced that both were the work of the same hand ; and later, three other graphologists were consulted, two of whom agreed with Bertillon, while the other sided with M. Gobert. The preponderance of opinion was against the prisoner. In spite of his protestations of innocence, the authorship of the ‘bordereau’ was fastened upon him, and he was sentenced to perpetual exile, and the infamy of being degraded as a traitor. “ In order to arrive at some estimate of the value of these different opinions, it may be well to consider for a moment the men who uttered them. M. Gobert is the expert examiner of the Bank of France, and the most distinguished private graphologist in France, a man with presumably no prejudice in favor of either party in the case. M. Ber¬ tillon is widely known as a commissary of police and Chef de la Service de l’ldentite Judiciare-—an official of the French Government, and probably acquainted with its overwhelming desire to fasten the crime upon the accused man. The other experts were men of less note, and may have been influenced by the earlier decisions. “After the conviction and transportation of Dreyfus, his family and friends began an active campaign to prove his innocence. “ As one step in this they prepared exact reproductions of the ‘ bor¬ dereau,’ and of two authentic specimens of the condemned man’s handwriting, one written before and one after the discovery of that docu¬ ment. These were submitted to the most famous graphologists of the world, eleven in number. Mr. Ames was among those whose opinions were solicited, and thus was brought officially into the case. It is an interesting and significant fact that these eleven experts, in half a dozen different countries, working independently of each other, and along original lines, were unanimously of the opinion that the two papers were not and could not have been written by the same man. Thus the con¬ gress of experts stood three for and thirteen against the decision of the court-martial, while the civilized world, outside of France, united in favor of Dreyfus.” The following is a copy of the writer’s report, submitted in April, 1897, an d which was remarkably verified at the sub¬ sequent trial of Captain Dreyfus :— OFFICE OF DANIEL T. AMES. Hand-writing Expert NEW YORK CITY (now 24 POST ST., san francisco, California) NEW YORK ClTY, “In re Dreyfus. September 26, 1898. “This is to certify that I have examined two photo- lithographed copies of letters selected as standard writing of Captain Dreyfus; one dated 1895, and the other 1890. That of 1895 with a stub pen of medium fineness and near to the standard slant of fifty-two degrees; while that of 1890 is of a more upright slant and with a stub pen. Both letters are in a smooth, flowing style. “ I have also made a careful examination and comparison of these letters with another writing without date or signa¬ ture, alleged to have been written by Captain Dreyfus. The latter is so imperfect in its reproduction as to em¬ barrass the comparison, and render the conclusion less reliable than it otherwise would be; but from such com¬ parison as I have been enabled to make, I am of the opinion that the said unknown writing is the result of an effort to imitate or counterfeit the writing of Dreyfus rather than the endeavor of the author of the standard writing to disguise his hand. It is my opinion that the anonymous writing, or so-called ‘bordereau,’ was not written by Captain Dreyfus. “ I am lead to this conclusion from the apparently lower order of artistic skill manifest in the anonymous writing. It differs in its angularity, in the shorter extensions of the loops and other extended letters, and it also differs in the form and relationship of the letters, in the transposed pen- pressure, in the alignment and slope of the writing, and in the different manner of crossing the t' s. These are the differences which would designate imitated rather than disguised writing. It must be understood that this conclu¬ sion is reached from the comparison of reproduced writing, which must of necessity be more or less imperfect, and this opinion might be more or less modified according to the correspondence of the lithographic copies with the originals. “ Respectfully submitted, Daniel T. Ames.” CHAPTER XIX. THE JUNIUS LETTERS — ABSTRACT FROM THE CELEBRATED WORK OF SIR EDWARD TWISLETON, EMBODYING THE REPORT OF THE FAMOUS ENGLISH EXPERT, CHABOT, ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE JUNIUS LETTERS. Beyond doubt the handwriting in the Junius Letters has been the subject of a more prolonged and persistent inquiry than has been accorded any other matter wherein the ques¬ tion of handwriting has been involved. For more than a century “ Who wrote the Junius Letters ?” was a question of constant and earnest- repetition throughout the United Kingdom. The famous letters were in a disguised hand- writing, and made their first appearance in January, 1769. They were political in their character, and laid bare to the bone the inner workings of British politics and the corrup¬ tion of the British court of that period. Scarcely a man in public life escaped the lash and biting sarcasm of these powerful missives, which betrayed a most intimate knowl¬ edge of all that was going on in the most guarded political and social circles, as well as the- private lives of the minis¬ ters and political leaders. Their author therefore had the strongest incentive to conceal his identity at any cost. Dis¬ covery and exposure would mean nothing less than ruin, perhaps an ignominious death. This was a quite sufficient reason for his taking the secret with him to the grave. Hardly an eminent Englishman of that period escaped the suspicion of having written the letters. But when the evidence was gathered and sifted, only the sieve remained. Burke, Wilkes, Horne Tooke, Lord Lyttleton, Lord George CHABOT S REPORT ON THE JUNIUS LETTERS. 243 Sackville, Lord Shelburn, Colonel Barre, Sir Philip Francis, and Lady Temple, were among the many to whom the authorship has been attributed. We have before us a large quarto work, by the Murrays of London, consisting of six hundred and sixty-five pages, which is described on the title page as “ The Handwriting of Junius as Professionally Investigated by Mr. Charles Chabot, Expert: With Preface and Collateral Evidence by the Hon. Edward Twisleton.” The result of this investi¬ gation is that the Junius Letters are attributed to Sir Philip Francis with a degree of positiveness that would warrant a jury’s verdict in an ordinary case, and the mystery of a century is cleared away. Probably there is not recorded a greater triumph for expert testimony with respect of evidence from handwriting. The work of Messrs. Chabot and Twisleton, says the editor of the Quarterly Review , possesses a value quite independent of the immediate question which it discusses. Its direct object is to prove by a minute and exhaustive examination of the Junian manuscripts and of the letters of Sir Philip Francis that both of them were written by the same person; but indirectly it supplies most valuable information and rules for guidance to those engaged in the investigation of subjects in which a comparison of hand¬ writing is more or less involved. In the book are presented eighty-five lithographed plates of the writing of Sir Philip Francis and eighty-three plates of the junian writing. It is by far the most voluminous and most profusely illustrated work yet published upon expert comparison of handwriting. In seeking to prove that two different handwritings have been made use of by the same person, it is important to observe the method pursued in the investigation. Most persons are content with a general comparison, without endeavoring to ascertain the principles which govern the handwriting, or the characteristic habits in the two hand- 244 UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES. writings under discussion. They thus form their judgment by the impression left upon their minds by general simi¬ larity, without that careful examination of the peculiar and distinctive formations of individual letters which character¬ ize the writing. “ The principles which underlie all proof by comparison of handwritings are very simple, and when distinctly enunciated, appear to be self-evident. To prove that two documents were written by the same hand, coinci¬ dences must be shown to exist in them which cannot be accidental. To prove that two documents were written by different hands, discrepancies must be pointed out in them which cannot be accounted for by accident or by disguise. These principles are easy to understand, but to exemplify them in observations is by no means always easy.” It is the merit of these reports that they give a minute analysis of the handwriting by examining separately the elements or letters of which it is composed. From a great mass of matter presented we select a few illustrations for compari¬ son, which appear in the following pages. In approaching this branch of the subject, Mr. Chabot says:— “ I find generally in the writing of the letters of Sir Philip Francis so much variety in the formation of all letters which admit of variety as to render his handwriting difficult to disguise in any ordinary man¬ ner, and consequently easy to identify. I discovefalso in the writing of the letters and manuscripts of Junius variations in the formation of certain letters, in some cases very multifarious, and of frequent occur¬ rence, and that these variations closely correspond with those observed in the writing of Sir Philip Francis. They are, however, chiefly con¬ fined to the small letters in both handwritings; the habitual formation of capital letters being seldom departed from in any essential particular in either. I find also, in some instances, wherein J unius makes exag¬ gerated formations of certain letters, exact counterparts of them are to be found in the writing of Sir Philip Francis, and in some cases as nearly as possible with the same frequency. I further find in the hand¬ writing of Sir Philip Francis a repetition of all, or nearly all, the lead¬ ing features and peculiar habits of writing, independent of the formations of letters, which so distinguish the Junian writing. These are so numerous, so varied, and in some cases so distinctive, that, when taken TWO CLASSES OF EVIDENCE. 245 collectively, it is scarcely within the limits of possibility that they can be found in the handwriting of any two persons. I am, therefore, irre¬ sistibly driven to the conclusion that thejunian manuscripts and the forty-four letters of Francis have all been written by one and the same hand.” Mr. Chabot brings forward two distinct classes of evi¬ dence to identify the handwriting of Sir Philip Francis with that of Junius, one relating to the formation of letters and to peculiarities connected therewith, and the other to habits of writing which do not necessarily depend on such formations and peculiarities. First as to the general construction of the Junian hand¬ writing : — “ Upon an attentive examination it will be found that the slope of the Junian writing differs from that of Francis’s principally in the down- strokes of the letters, and that the slope of the up-strokes, which is very horizontally inclined, is, as nearly as may be, the same in both. This will become clearly apparent upon an examination and comparison of the following facsimiles:— FRANCIS. 0vCCL_2 JUNIUS. “ Some writers make both the upper and lower turns ol their letters angular; others give them considerable roundness; the results are two opposite styles of writing. When Francis wrote rapidly, his writing partook of both characteristics in an eminent degree. If he altered the down-strokes — by making them more upright, without making any corresponding alteration in the up-strokes of his writing, those three qualifications would necessarily be augmented and become more dis¬ tinctly apparent. Be that as it may, they are the principles upon which the Junian hand is constructed. ‘‘When Junius altered the natural tendency of his hand, which he sometimes attempted for the purpose of disguising it, by making the lower as well as the upper turns of his letters angular, the two leading 246 WRITING OF FRANCIS AND JUNIUS CONTRASTED. characteristics of extreme breadth to the former and narrowness to the latter still remain. It is not only the fineness and smallness of the writ¬ ing, but also the angularity of so many of the lower turns of the writing of that letter, that occasion the strong contrast of its general character to that of the letters to Woodfall, Nos. 7, 9, 12, and 22, and others of the Junian writing. “Although many of the letters of Junius contrast with each other in their general appearance, the construction of the writing of all is based upon these principles: In all, the upper turns of the letters are angular and cramped, and the lower turns wide and free; and the latter are habitually, though not always, well rounded, agreeably with the natural tendency of Francis’s writing, particularly when he wrote rap¬ idly. The extreme width of the lower turns of the letters frequently occasioned in the Junian hand as much space between the letters as between words, as shown in the subjoined facsimiles:— FRANCIS. “The following words, taken from Junius’s first letter to Mr. Gren¬ ville, forcibly illustrates these three peculiarities:— JUNIUS. “ In that facsimile the upper turns of the letters h and m are angular in the extreme, and the lower turn of the letter h is so round and wide that it occasions almost as much space between the two letters as is afforded between the word and the word following it.’’ The following may be mentioned as some of the spe¬ cialties in the handwritings of Junius and Francis: — I. Sir Philip Francis was apt to write the letter i in the word ‘time’ upside down, as in the following facsimiles:— FRANCIS. JUNIUS. HABITS REPEATED IN A FEIGNED HAND. 247 “He has done so in eight of the twenty-one instances wherein that word occurs in his letters. He would, therefore, be liable to repeat that habit while writing in a feigned hand. Accordingly I find on the second page of Junius’s third letter to Mr. Grenville, that word written in the same remarkable manner, as shown on preceding page. “Moreover, the general character of the writing of that word cor¬ responds closely with the two instances taken from Francis’s writing. “II. But, further, Francis, having written the word ‘time’ in the middle of a sentence, in the peculiar manner shown, had the habit of occasionally making an addition to the small letter t, which had the effect of converting it (improperly) into a capital letter, thus;— FRANCIS. “Both of these peculiarities occur'in the word ‘time,’ written on the first page of Junius’s first letter to Mr. Grenville, thus:— JUNIUS. “The letter from which that word is taken is dated only a month after the date of Francis’s letter from which the first of the two facsim¬ iles of the word ‘ time ’ is taken, and it occurs in the same phrase, viz: ‘in the mean time.’ The form of the addition made by Junius does not exactly correspond with that by Francis, because he was dis¬ guising his hand; but the habit or intention is the same, notwithstand¬ ing the difference of form. This disguise, however, like many others adopted by Junius, was not uniformly maintained. There is another instance in which no difference of form appears. Francis occasionally made this addition to the small letter t when he wrote the word ‘thing’ in the middle of a sentence where no capital letter was needed, as in the following facsimile:— 248 COMPARISON OF HABITS, CONTINUED. FRANCIS. “Junius has made a similar addition, and in like form to the letter t, in the same word, also written in the middle of a sentence, as here shown:— JUNIUS. “It will be observed in each case that if the addition be removed the word will remain written with a small letter /, commenced with an up-stroke in the usual manner, and that the entire word has been writ¬ ten by a single operation of the pen, sustained on the paper until the word has been completed. “These two peculiarities are by no means frequent in the Junian writings; their occurrence in Francis’s hand suggests the source whence they are derived. They occur in other words in his writing at irregu¬ lar intervals, insufficient to be regarded as habits of writing, but rather as inadvertencies to which he was liable. Another instance of an inverted letter i occurs in the word ‘writing,’ and ‘write,’ in Francis’s letters, thus:— FRANCIS. * 1 " “ It also occurs in similar words in Junius to Woodfall, thus:- JUNIUS. firyrijL, 4 “ In the same way that Francis formed the letter i similarly to a let¬ ter r, so he formed (and far more frequently) the letter r like a letter The writing of Junius is equally plentiful in these irregularities. THE OMISSION OF LETTERS. 249 In Junius to Woodfall, the two letters v and e of the second syllable of the word “Cavendishes” are omitted. The omission is signified by a peculiar compound curve with hooks. This mark is the brand of Francis’s hand, and, corroborated by other evidence, stamps that letter as having emanated from him. The omission of the three letters u, a, and r of the second syllable of the word “ Feb¬ ruary ” in the dating of that letter, is signified by a mark in perfect keeping with that employed by Junius and Francis, as in the following facsimiles: — JUNIUS. FRANCIS. “I do not remember [Mr. Chabot says] having seen this mode of shortening a word in any other handwriting. It may have been com¬ mon in the last century, but no instance has attracted my attention in a very large amount of different handwritings of that period which I have examined in the British Museum. It occurs once only in the Junian hand, but I find three other instances in the letter-book, on the backs of letters by Francis, besides that already given, sufficient to show that that mark of abbreviation was a peculiarity specially belonging to his hand. “ The preceding are instances of specialties in regard to forms, in all three of which, in combination, few if any other writers can be found to participate with Junius and Francis. I find in their hands not only coincidences of special formation of letters, but of special uses for which particular formations only of certain.letters are employed; and notwith¬ standing those formations are of a common character, the application of them to particular uses, to the exclusion of other common forma¬ tions, gives them considerable importance. We may also notice another specialty in the two handwritings relating to the letters m and n. “ The junction of two words had the effect of materially altering the character of the formation of certain letters in the two handwritings now under examination. Both Junius and Francis frequently formed the letters m and n in a somewhat distinctive manner, as in the follow¬ ing facsimiles:— HABIT OF JOINING LETTERS. 2 50 JUNIUS. FRANCIS. { -l 4. 4. JUNIUS. FRANCIS. JUNIUS. 4 - “ It will be observed that roundness of form characterizes the upper turns, commencing the letter m and n, in the above examples. Those letters might have been j’oined to the words preceding them and still have preserved that character, and would do so in hands wherein round¬ ness of form is habitual. This, however, was not so either with Junius or with Francis. Moreover, they were both prone to join words, com¬ mencing with m or n , to the words preceding them. “Francis, on very rare occasions, commenced the small letter m, when disjoined from the preceding word, not only angularly, but in a very distinctive manner, as in the subjoined examples:— “When Junius joined either a letter m or n to the word preceding it, he altered the character of those letters in a very marked manner by changing the round form into a very angular one. Francis also fell into the same habit, as is evinced in the following facsimiles:— JUNIUS. t^]\jl4Xsrn 4 HABITS COMMON TO FRANCIS AND JUNIUS. 2 5 l FRANCIS. aJjL^tlaXbuir 4 . JUNIUS. 'iJudAx/r 4 + FRANCIS. “Two instances of the letter m thus formed occur in the Junian hand, as in the words ‘man’ and ‘money,’ written in the essay sent to Mr. Grenville, as in the following facsimiles:— FRANCIS. JUNIUS. “Thus, three distinct formations of the letters at the beginnings of words, distinguish alike the handwriting of both Junius and Francis.’’ We have selected the accompanying similarities out of many hundreds of a like kind, merely as examples of the mode of investigation adopted by Mr. Chabot in dealing with the formation of letters. We now proceed to mention some instances of habits common to Junius and Francis, which are not necessarily dependent on their mode of forming letters. Mr. Chabot enumerates ten such instances: — “ i. The mode of dating letters. “2. The placing of a full-stop after the salutation. “ 3. The mode of signing initials between two dashes. 252 NINE POINTS IN DATING OF LETTERS. “4. Writing in paragraphs. “ 5. Separating paragraphs by dashes placed between them at their commencement. “6. Invariable attention to punctuation. / JUNIUS. / FRANCIS. — ? / “7. The enlargement of the first letters of words. “8. The insertion of omitted letters in the line of writing, and not above it, and the various modes of correcting miswriting. “9. Mode of abbreviating words, and abbreviating the same words. &Jzr. O “ 10. Misspelling certain specifiedTw'ordsT Of these several points of agreement in habits between the handwriting of Junius and Francis, the first is the most striking and deserves special study. The datings of the letters of Junius are characterized by the following nine points: — “ 1. The placing the note of place and time at the top of the letter, and not at the foot or close of it. “ 2. The writing the whole in one line only. “ 3. The writing the name of place. “4. Placing the day of the month before the month, and not after it. “ 5. Placing a stop after the name of place. ‘ 1 6. Placing a stop after the day of the month. twisleton’s summary of chabot’s report. 253 “ 7. Pl?cing a stop after the name of the month. “8. Placing a stop after the figures of the year. “9. Writing at full length such a month as ‘January,’ ‘February,’ or ‘October.’ The following facsimile, taken from Junius’s third letter to Mr. Grenville, illustrates the fourth and ninth points: — JUNIUS. FRANCIS. Now it is remarkable that these nine points, and par¬ ticularly the first eight, are found combined in most of the existing letters of Francis. Many of these points, taken separately, are of common concurrence in the openings of letters ; but their combination is likely to be extremely rare. Mr. Chabot says he has never seen them combined except in Junius and Francis, and Mr. Twisleton, who has exam¬ ined more than three thousand letters in the “ Grenville Papers,” the “Anson Papers,” and other documents of the same kind, likewise states that he has never seen those points united in any other writer. Mr. Chabot, therefore, we think, is justified in adding that, “upon comparing a paper written anonymously with the known letters of a suspected party, such a combination in each document would carry suspicion to the highest point, and, united to a few only of other coincidences of equal importance, would, by an impartial mind, be deemed conclusive as to the reality of the suspected fact.” We have reproduced only a small part of the paralleled examples between the Francis and Junian writings pre- 254 NOTE FROM LONDON “QUARTERLY REVIEW.” sented by Chabot in his analysis, but sufficient to illustrate his method and vindicate his conclusion that the two writ¬ ings are one. Mr. Twisleton closes his review of Chabot’s report with the following very pertinent comments: — “ It sometimes happens that it is impossible to detect the author of anonymous letters or of a forged signature, except by a comparison of handwritings. A bad and base man may successfully have taken such precautions that no human eye saw his hand while it was penning a particular document, and that no external evidence is in existence to trace that document into his possession. In such a case, everything in a trial may depend on the special knowledge which is brought to bear on the internal evidence of the document itself by the advocates, the jury, and the judge. From ignorance of the subject an advocate sometimes does not ask the proper questions of an expert whose evi¬ dence is favorable to his cause. From similar ignorance an advocate on the other side is frequently driven into the subterfuge of declaiming against experts, when, if he had a little knowledge of the subject, he might weaken the force of adverse evidence by two or three reasonable objections. And if in a trial either the judge or a single prejudiced juryman held the opinion that no certainty could be arrived at by com¬ parison of handwritings, or that in such comparison it was a better test to look to general character than to individual letters, there might easily be an absolute miscarriage of justice. If accused of writing malicious and libelous anonymous letters, a guilty man might escape, or an innocent man might be condemned. Whem important interests were at stake a genuine will might be rejected while one that was forged might be accepted.” Note by editor of London Quarterly Review: “ The following observations of Mr. Twisleton on the subject of ‘experts’ deserve to be remembered in the present investigation : ‘The word “expert” is often used very loosely. It is fre¬ quently used to designate lithographers, or gentlemen connected with banks, who come forward as witnesses once or twice in their lives to express their belief that a particular document was or was not written by a certain individual. The word has, then, a meaning very different from that of general experts in handwriting, recognized as such in courts of justice, like Mr. Chabot and Mr. Netherclift, to whom cases of disputed writing are systematically submitted, from time to time, for their professional opinion, and who are prepared to state detailed reasons for every such opinion which they give. Having taken some pains to ascertain this point, I have been assured that during the last fifty years the number of such experts in London has been very few, and that there are only two such experts in London practice now. Hence, tales about experts should be received with distrust, unless names and particulars are mentioned, so that it may be ascertained in what sense the word “expert” is used.’ ” CHAPTER XX. QUALIFYING AN EXPERT WITNESS — USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND BLACKBOARD. Preliminary Preparation.— The expert should be given ample time in which to make his preliminary examination and report. Attorneys frequently wait until the time of a trial before calling an expert, and then often find that he has a conflicting engagement, or that the time for a scien¬ tific examination is not sufficient. Generally, it is better to have the report in writing, with reasons for conclusions. A conference should be held with the expert, at which each point should be discussed. In this way the attorney will learn the strong points to be brought out, the reasons for them, how best to present them, the expert’s qualifications, and what is needed in the way of photographs and materials to properly illustrate to the court and jury. Photographs.—- If the case is to go before a jury, by all means have photographs of the disputed and standard writings, both natural size and enlarged. If signatures are to be compared, enlarged copies should be made. A photo¬ graph, natural size, should be placed in the hands of each of the jury (or at least one for every two jurymen), besides which there should be one for the court, one for each attor¬ ney, and one for the witness. If enlarged photographs are used, only one set is needed. These can be mounted on cardboard or on a drawing-board and easel. The enlarge¬ ments should be of a size sufficient for court, jury, and attorneys clearly to see the writing in detail from their seats. 256 USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS AND BLACKBOARD. In arranging the originals to be photographed, the dis¬ puted and the known writings should be juxtaposed, so as to render comparison easy. The photographs should be proven to be accurate copies of the originals by the pho¬ tographer who made them. While it is entirely within the discretion of the court whether or not photographs may be admitted, as aids to comparison, their admission is now the rule ; and they are almost invariably allowed when not offered in evidence, but for the purpose of illustrating the reasons presented by the expert. The originals only cai? be accepted as evidence. Easel or Blackboard. — The expert should be pro¬ vided with a blackboard, or a large drawing-board mounted on an easel. The latter is preferable, as then large sheets of paper may be used, upon which illustrations can be drawn with black crayon, and these may be preserved as exhibits, if necessary. Thus striking points of similarity or dissimilarity between the standard and disputed writings may be effectively presented to court and jury. Occasion¬ ally the opposing counsel may object to the use of such means of illustration, but our higher courts have ruled in numerous instances that it is perfectly proper. Qualifying an Expert Witness.— At the best, the qualifying of an expert on the witness-stand will seem largely egotistical on the part of the witness, and the attor¬ neys on his side should make it as delicate as possible. It saves time, trouble, and possible loss of the verdict if the expert be fully qualified before being permitted to testify. While he may be never so lucid in giving reasons for his conclusions, there is a chance of one or more of the jury not being able to comprehend the more or less subtle points in his explanation, and as a consequence they may have to take his testimony on faith. This faith may be strength¬ ened if the witness is qualified fully before proceeding to testify, and if it is shown that he is a man who, by nature, QUALIFYING QUESTIONS. 2 57 training, and experience, is qualified in every way to give a well-grounded opinion. Questions bringing out the following points should be asked — 1. Age. 2. Occupation. 3. How long an expert; how many cases, and in what courts. 4. What preliminary training (and preparation for pres¬ ent occupation) before engaging in the present calling. 5. Whether author, lecturer, publisher, member of any organization, etc. 6. Any other questions tending to show education, expe¬ rience, and standing as an expert. Admission of Standards.— Known writings, termed either “ standards ” or “ exemplars,” should be selected with great care. The greater the number and the nearer the date and character of the disputed writing, the better. Signatures to legal papers, deeds, mortgages, wills, leases, etc., as well as notes, receipts, and checks, are best. Courts are exceedingly careful, and rightly so, about the writings admitted as “ standards.” An expert should not be asked to use as a standard a single signature or piece of writing where more can be obtained, because some of the characteristics of the writing in question may be lacking from any particular piece, or it may embody other accidental peculiarities foreign to the habit of the writer. In the absence of proper material for comparison, an expert should decline to give his opinion or testimony. A large number of specimens will show the general handwriting of the individual, and preclude the probability of a mistake being made in passing judgment, which might occur were the examination confined to a single brief specimen, which might not properly represent the range of the person’s writing habit. 258 PENCIL VERSUS PEN-AND-INK WRITING. If the disputed writing is in lead-pencil, by all means secure some lead-pencil standards, if possible; also some ink standards. But do not use lead-pencil standards, (unless compelled to by necessity) for comparison with disputed ink writings, as it is obvious that writing with a pencil can not contain all the characteristics of pen-and-ink writing. Especially is this true of shading, which is an important factor in the comparison of writing. Direct Examination. — After exhibits are marked for identification, or have been admitted in evidence, hand the disputed document to the witness and say :— “ I hand you ‘ Exhibit No. 1,’ and ask when and where you saw it first.” “ I hand you ‘ Exhibits A,’ ‘ B,’ ‘C,’ etc., [standards], and ask you if you have seen those before.” “ Have you examined and compared the handwriting in the two sets of exhibits [naming them]?” “ Have you reached a conclusion whether or not they were written by the same hand?” “What is that conclusion?” “Give to the court and jury, in your own way , your rea¬ sons for this conclusion.” Re-direct Examination. — During cross-examination it will be necessary for the attorney to follow closely the questions of the opposing counsel and the answers of the witness. By skillful questioning and compelling the wit¬ ness to give strictly responsive answers, the opposing attor¬ ney may seem to make the witness contradict his direct testimony. The watchful attorney should make a note of these points, and when he sees the witness struggling to give an answer that will tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” but by calls for “responsive” and “yes ” or “ no ” answers, is compelled to say the opposite or only part of what he wants to say, the attorney should see that RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION. 259 the witness, on re-direct examination, has an opportunity to finish his answer and say fully what he sought to say when under cross-examination. For example: On direct exami¬ nation the witness may have pointed out the resemblance in the case of a certain capital letter—The height, shade, proportions, openings, angles, turns, etc. The opposing counsel may pick out the same letter in some other hand¬ writing that has one or more points in common with the disputed writing ; or he may take still another capital letter in still another handwriting, and in that point out char¬ acteristics common to the standard and disputed writings. In this way, what may appear to the jury to be coincident in the handwritings are not in reality characteristics but mere resemblances, perhaps only the accidents of several different handwritings — no two of them coincident in any two hands. The watchful attorney should make this plain to the jury by his re-direct examination. CHAPTER XXI. KINDS OF INKS — THEIR COMPOSITION—COPYING - INK — SAFETY INK-COLORED INKS — TESTS OF INKS, FOR THE PURPOSE OF DETERMINING THEIR IDENTITY-INK ERASURES BY CHEMICALS AND THEIR RESTORATION — EVIDENCE AS TO THE RELATIVE AGES OF INK UPON DOCUMENTS — JUDGING OF THE COLORS OF INKS.* i Frequently the inks used in the writing on a document will be of great assistance in determining its genuineness or spuriousness. If interlineations, alterations, or addi¬ tions have been made, it is practicable for the expert to tell whether or not the entire document was written with the same ink, and approximately the ages of the different inks used. Several important cases have been decided by experts proving that certain constituents of the inks used on ques¬ tioned documents were not on the market, and consequently not used in the manufacture of ink at the time the inks in question were purported to have been applied to the paper. The Gordon will case, in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1891, was practically determined by the demonstration by experts that eosin — a product unknown at the time the interlinea¬ tion in the will was said to have been made (1867) — was used to produce the red ink with which some important interlineations had been made. * We are indebted to Prof. W. T- Kinsley, a skilled handwriting, ink and paper expert, for several years associated with the writer at No. 202 Broadway, New York City, for the preparation of the chapters on inks and paper. COMPOSITION OF INKS. 26l KINDS OF INKS. Iron and Tannin. — Black or blue-black writing-inks in which tannic acids and ferric oxide (a salt of iron) are the principal constituents are the inks with which the expert will oftenest have to deal. Tannin is extracted from nut- galls (Aleppo or Chinese being the best), oak bark, sumach, or valonia, and can be obtained from practically all vegetable substances. Most of the inks on the market in which tannin is used are made by macerating nut-galls. After maceration and fermentation of the nut-gall product, it becomes what is known as gallic acid. Pyrogallic acid, catechutannic acid, kinotannic acid, and morintannic acid are names given to tannic extracts from various plants. The various tannins when combined with iron salts pro¬ duce the following colors: Gallic acid and ferric salts, dark blue ; gallotannic acid and ferric salts, black-blue ; catechu¬ tannic acid and ferric salts, dirty green; pyrogallic acid with ferrous salts, black-blue; kinotannic acid with ferric salts, black-green; morintannic acid with ferric salts, dark green. Ferrous salts are converted into ferric salts when exposed to air. Ink that has been made for some time always has some ferric salts in it. The most frequently used iron salt of commerce is fer¬ rous sulphate, commonly known as iron vitriol, green vit¬ riol, or copperas. It is made by pouring dilute sulphuric acid over iron-filings, scraps, etc. The liquid is filtered, and is usually mixed with an equal quantity of spirit of wine. The two liquids produce a delicate pale-green pow¬ der, which is precipitated. This last product is the pure ferrous sulphate. Ferric sulphate is made by adding some nitric acid to a solution of ferrous sulphate and heating to the boiling- point. In addition to the tannin and iron, some inspissating 262 COPYING-INK AND TEST. agent, such as gum or dextrin, is used. Preservative matter, frequently a small quantity of carbolic acid, is used in addition. Logwood Inks.— -The red heart-wood of the logwood- tree (Hcematoxylon Campechianum ), cut from trees about ten years old, is the logwood of commerce. By boiling it in water it gives a liquid which is dark red in color. Dilute acids, when added to the dark-red liquid, change it to crimson color. When the crimson fluid is combined with iron salts a dark blue-black color is the result. Logwood inks are usually a combination of nut-galls, ferrous sulphate, and gum, as well as logwood extract, and, of course, water. Occasionally vinegar is added, and some¬ times chromate of potassium. Alizarin Inks. — Alizarin is the red coloring- matter obtained from madder-root. Practically all the alizarin on the market is produced by artificial processes. Few or none of the so-called alizarin inks contain any alizarin what¬ ever. The inks on the market under the name of alizarin are made of ferrous tannate in a dissolved state with acetic or sulphuric acid. The coloring matter being in solution (no sediment forming), and possessing great fluidity, these inks are popular for rapid writing. The alizarin inks are too pale when first put on the paper, and indigo- carmine or aniline colors are added to strengthen the color. Copying-Inks. — Any substance which possesses the property of absorbing moisture from the air when added to ordinary inks changes them into copying-inks. Dextrin, glucose, glycerin, and sugar are some of the substances used. Copying-Ink and Test. — Any common writing-ink can be changed to a copying-ink by adding a small quantity of SAFETY AND COLORED INKS. 263 sugar, gum arabic, or glucose. The ready test for a copy¬ ing-ink is the application of dampened paper under the simple pressure of the thumb, or even a bit of tissue paper touched to the tongue and then pressed under the thumb against the ink-lines which it is desired to test. Aniline Inks.— Water-soluble aniline colors are used to make many of the cheaper inks on the market. While producing brilliant colors at the first, they are not perma¬ nent, and are dangerous to use on this account. But a small quantity of the coloring is required, as it is strong; alcohol, water, and gum arabic are the other constituents. If gly¬ cerin is added, it will become copying-ink. Safety Inks.— So-called safety and bankers’ inks are made from carbon or vanadium. Carbon inks are unaf¬ fected by acids, but may easily be removed from paper by carefully washing with water. Printing-inks (which are made from carbon or lamp¬ black) contain varnish, and this penetrates the paper and carries the carbon with it. Printing-inks cannot be removed by washing, but owing to their thickness (being pasty), they cannot be used for writing. Vanadium ink is made from filtered nut-galls and ammo¬ nium vanadate. Shellac, borax, soluble Berlin (or Prussian) blue, resin, soda, water-glass, etc., are also used in the manufacture of safety inks. Colored Inks. — The discovery of aniline has made it possible to produce inks of practically any color. Aniline inks are fugitive and unsafe to use where permanency is desired. Red ink is the kind most frequently met with by the expert. Brazil-wood and cochineal have been longest used to make red ink, but the chemical preparation fuchsine, or 264 ANILINE AND COLORED PENCILS. aniline red, is now largely used in the cheaper inks. Brazil¬ wood and cochineal inks are made by adding hydrated chloride of tin, alum, tartaric acid, ammonia, gum, etc., to the main ingredients. Aniline inks are made by dissolving the coloring matter in water and adding gum arabic. Indigo-carmine and insoluble Prussian blue, are used in making blue inks. Aniline and Colored Pencils.— Aniline, kaolin, and graphite, when properly mixed, produce pencils that make marks which cannot be removed with the ordinary (rubber) pencil eraser. When wet, the marks made by such pencils assume the appearance of ink-lines and will give a copy also. Nigrosine for black, methyl-violet or water-soluble blue for violet and blue, fuchsine for red, are the principal colors used. Sympathetic Inks. —'It is seldom that sympathetic inks play any part in the expert’s examination. Inks that dis¬ appear, appear, or change color are called sympathetic inks. To understand these inks it is necessary to know the con¬ stituents of the inks and to know the proper reagent to use to produce the desired result. A saturated solution of oxalic acid heated to boiling, with molybdic acid added until no more will dissolve, will produce a black sympathetic ink. This ink should be kept in a black bottle. Exposure to sunlight turns writing executed with this ink dark blue, and it becomes black when heated. Stamping-Inks.— Gum arabic, glycerin, and water, with the addition of coloring matter, form stamping-inks. Eosin for red, nigrosin for black, methyl-violet for violet, are some of the substances used. Pyroligneous acid, alcohol, and sugar are also used in addition to coloring matter to pro¬ duce stamping-inks. INK TESTS. 265 Typewriter Inks. — Typewriter inks are frequently questioned, and it becomes necessary for the examiner to know something of them. Well-ground permanent color, vaseline, glycerin, wax, benzine, and turpentine are the constituents. This ink is applied to the ribbon by means of brushes. Aniline colors are extensively used in the manufacture of copying-ribbons, and carbon is most used for best record ribbon inks. Ruling-Inks. — Berlin blue dissolved in yellow prussiate of potash, gum-water, and warm water will produce a blue ink for faint ruling. Ink Tests. — The decision in many important cases has hinged on the ink; whether two or more pieces of writing were made with one or more inks. It is also important at times to know what were the main constituents used in certain inks, as, for example, iron, nut-galls, logwood, nigrosin, vanadium, etc. Visual and microscopical exami¬ nations of disputed writings often arouse suspicion that a chemical test alone will settle. If a document purports to be all written with one and the same ink, and it can be clearly shown by chemical tests that one ink is iron and the other logwood, nigrosin, or some different ink, the impor¬ tance of such a demonstration can be seen at once. (The table printed herewith is from the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, October 31, 1892. It origi¬ nally appeared in the Pharmaceutische Central-Halle, JSFeue Folge, No. 13, 1892, page 225, by A. Robertson and J. Hofman. It is a valuable list of tests, and will furnish a guide as to reagents to use in reactions on the principal inks of commerce.) Determining Age of Ink.—To determine the exact age of writings by the ink used is impossible. The approximate age may be determined with some degree of TESTS FOR INKS. Draw a moistened quill, or gold pen, over the ink mark, and observe with a magnifying-glass. JG U) CQ as v a a JG bJO CQ CQ d> ~ CQ o 0^ G G xb G G t- u. ~ >» c hG JC 03 03 b/D-^ b/) bJO G G G . 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