The Microscope. 81 



EDITORIAL. 



THE MICROSCOPE IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 



The importance and usefulness of this gi-eat instrument grows 

 with every year. Its vakiable service is by no means restricted to 

 the medical profession, whose especial favorite it is. It has inter- 

 ested itself in the varied fields of manufacture, especially in pharmacy 

 and chemistry, where it has become as indispensable an article of 

 furniture as the "mortar and pestle " to the apothecary; but its orbit 

 has widened and continues to widen with almost every new moon. It 

 is, perhaps, not generally known how very useful it has of late years 

 become in the legal profession. A few years ago, when a question 

 arose as to the authenticity of signatures, or suspected alterations in 

 a written instrument (such as deeds, wills or promissory notes), the 

 only means the court and jury had to settle the vexed question was 

 to call in men reputed to be *' experts " in the matter of handwriting, 

 such as bookkeepers, paying tellers in banks, scriveners and copyists, 

 and take their opinions for what they were worth. Oftentimes very 

 shrewd judgments were given by such witnesses ; but the best 

 opinion in a delicate case was generally submitted as a mere guess or 

 conjecture, with such reasons as the observer had to offer in its sup- 

 port — and smart lawyers generally managed to introduce as many 

 expert witnesses on one side as were offered on the other, and so the 

 jury instead of being helped, were only the more perplexed over the 

 question which they were sworn truly and correctly to decide. The 

 rale of law being that any material alteration in an instrament 

 rendered the entire document void, it will be seen how large interests 

 of contending parties were often suspended on the correctness of the 

 human eye — unaided, it was as difficult a task in many cases as for 

 the observer to tell by a glance the number of fibres in a leaf, or 

 threads in a fabric offered for inspection. In cases of forgery, the 

 freedom or imprisonment of the suspected party was made to turn on 

 the stumbling judgment of unlettered and unskilled men in the jury 

 box. But to-day, in all such cases the microscope is summoned into 

 court, and its silent testimony solves the riddle in almost every case. 

 There is no impeaching this expert witness. Call as many micro- 

 scopes to the witness stand as may be desired, they all tell the same 

 story — no conflict between them, and the case is settled beyond the 

 possibility of a doubt. In the matter of counterfeited currency the 

 microscope has become a vade meciom to every modern bank clerk 

 charged with the responsibilities of a receiving teller. If a glance 

 of his well-trained eye awakens a suspicion as to the genuineness of 



