1880.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



49 



very successful attention to the 

 study of writing, especially imita- 

 tive writing, and in association with 

 whom many of my own investiga- 

 tions in this field during the last 

 dozen years have been carried on, 

 established the date of a document 

 by recognizing in the paper, fibres 

 which had only recently been used 

 in paper-making, and which, in con- 

 nection with corroborative proofs 

 to which they led, demonstrated 

 that the paper was manufactured 

 at a later date than that claimed by 

 the writing upon it. 



To discuss the subject of imita- 

 tive writing would require the 

 opportunities of a book, and not of 

 a fraction of a lecture ; and many 

 considerations of recognized impor- 

 tance connected with it are still 

 under investigation and not suf- 

 ficiently mature for publication. 

 A few hints may be given in 

 respect to those points which are 

 well established and most generally 

 applicable. When a word in a 

 fictitious signature, for instance, has 

 been constructed by tracing it with 

 pencil-lines over an original one, and 

 subsequently inking it over with a 

 pen, particles of plumbago can 

 probably be somewhere detected 

 and recognized by their position 

 and their well-known color and 

 lustre. The mechanical efi:"ect of 

 the point of a pencil upon and 

 among the fibres of the paper can 

 also be seen, notwithstanding the 

 subsequent staining of the paper 

 by the ink. This clumsy method 

 of copying carries its own means 

 of detection ; and still it is not 

 more easily recognized than are 

 methods that are more subtle and 

 seem more dangerous. In writing 

 copied or imitated originally in ink, 

 either by tracing it over a copy or 

 by drawing it free-hand with a 

 copy to inspect or to remember, 

 the distribution of ink is peculiar 



and suggestive, indicating hesita- 

 tion, from uncertainty, or pauses 

 to look at a copy, or to recall a style 

 or to decide as to a future course, 

 just at points where a person 

 writing automatically, by his own 

 method, and especially in" writing 

 his own name or a scarcely less 

 familiar business formula, would 

 pass over the paper most rapidly and 

 promptly. Again there are certain 

 ear-marks, results of habit, which 

 finally become as natural as it is to 

 breathe, and which characterize the 

 writing of different individuals. 

 Such are peculiar forms and styles 

 of letters and of combinations of 

 letters : methods of beginning or 

 of ending lines, letters, words or 

 sentences ; methods and places of 

 shading, or breaking lines, and of 

 dotting, crossing, patching or cor- 

 recting ; habits of correcting or not 

 correcting certain errors or omis- 

 sions ; the use of flourishes, and 

 peculiar ways of connecting v/ords 

 or of dissociating syllables. In imi- 

 tative writing these ear-marks of 

 another ownership are generally 

 copied with ostentatious promin- 

 ence, if not with real exaggeration, 

 in the capital letters and other 

 prominent parts, but lost sight of 

 in those less conspicuous places 

 where imitation naturally becomes 

 feeble and the habit of the writer 

 unconsciously asserts itself: and 

 this revelation often becomes more 

 positive by reason of the elaborate 

 efforts that are made to suppress it. 

 Things are overdone from fear, 

 which would have been negligently 

 done from habit ; not to speak of 

 gross blunders proceeding from the 

 same source. I once examined a 

 disputed signature from which 

 had been carefully scratched out a 

 line, immaterial and inconspicuous, 

 which conformed to the habit of 

 another person interested in the 

 case, but not to the habit of the 



