]886.] <±do [Frazer. 



faint lines will give evidence of the extent to which these ornaments have 

 grown from caprice to a habit. 



As a general rule there are several places — sometimes as many as eight 

 or nine in a long signature — when the darkening of the lines indicates a 

 general conformity ot the pen's path to one direction, and it would seem 

 that these places were not peculiar to any one part of a letter, nor that they 

 were less in a hair line than in a heavy stroke. They appear to be depend- 

 ent upon the anatomy and muscular structure of the individual in connec- 

 tion with his method of performing the act of writing his signature. For 

 instance, some writers can only form one or two letters without moving the 

 writing hand ; only a word or so without shifting the elbow ; others describe 

 with the forearm of the writing hand a curve around the elbow which re- 

 mains stationary ; others slide the forearm along into parallel positions 

 while writing. All these habits have different effects upon the hand- 

 writing which results, though they are not always to be easily detected, 

 owing to the fact that other habits are cultivated at the same time to 

 counteract the defect which each of these methods, when not so com- 

 pensated, would have impressed upon the appearance of the chirography. 



Thus, he who writes with an elbow pivoted immovably upon the table must 

 learn to move the fingers over a greater space at some part of the liue, to 

 avoid the curve which would unconsciously result. This more vigorous 

 movement of the fingers is likely to produce heavier strokes in the part 

 of the signature where the compensation is naturally applied. So that a 

 fixed elbow and heavy letter in the middle of the signature may stand to 

 each other in the relation of cause and effect. 



In signatures when the divergence is wide and the agreement corre- 

 spondingly small, it has been my custom to use the dark portions as cen- 

 tres to adjust the various signatures on, and this plan will sometimes fur- 

 nish a good composite when other plans fail. 



Desiring an illustration to accompany this paper, I sought a signature 

 which would serve as a fair test of the process. Manifestly such a signa- 

 ture must be well known to a large number of persons, and enough ex- 

 amples of it must exist to bring out the type character of their combina- 

 tion. Those individuals whose signatures are known to the largest 

 number of persons are usually bankers or persons authorized to sign firm 

 drafts, checks, &c, and these not unnaturally object to having the 

 minutest characteristics of their writing brought to the knowledge of the 

 public, though for the reasons stated above a study of what the composite 

 teaches would convince the intending forger that his task was a far more 

 difficult one than that of simply reproducing a design. On the other hand 

 signatures of dead bankers and dissolved firms soon pass out of the re- 

 membrance of those who were once familiar with them, and thereto] e 

 have no more significance than the sign manuals of unknown writers, or 

 those which are purely fictitious. 



George Washington's signature was one of the first to suggest itself, 

 because many persons were familiar with it, and there are numerous 



