gui'STioxi-:!) uocl'mi^x'js. 



Hy C". AIXSWOKTII MIT( Ilil.L, ll.A. (Oxon), IM.C 



Ami:kiia has added to tlic linglisli laiij,'uagu many 

 words and phases, some of which arc particularly 

 happy, while others may he eui)hemistically described 

 as devoid of beaiit\-. 



Among the more pi(tiiri'S(|iie e.\|)ressions of 

 American origin must be included the term " yues- 

 tioned Documents." which is a useful description 

 of all letters and papers the authenticity of which 

 there is reason to doubt : and the occupation of 

 " Examiner of Questioned Documents "" is now a 

 recognised profession in the United States. 



.Most of the investigations of this nature in 

 .\inerica have dealt chiefly 

 with the character of the 

 handwriting, and it is onlv 

 recently that any degree of 

 attention has been gi\en to 

 the scientific examination of 

 the ink, pajjer, and so on. 



There is. however, one 

 form of fraud which ajipcars 

 to ha\e hetn more common 

 in .Vinerica tlian in tliis 

 country, and to the de- 

 tection of which tile most 

 scientific methods of exam- 

 ination have been a[5plied. 

 This is the imitation of a 

 signature by means of 

 tracing. 



Such an imitation is not 

 always easy to detect, and 

 it requires a careful micro- 

 scopical examination of the 

 writing to show the irregu- 

 larities in the flowing of 

 the ink and the want of 

 decision in the strokes w hich 

 invariably accoin[)any a 

 careful tracing. In some 

 notorious cases the model 

 from which the forger traced 

 his copy has been dis- 

 covered, and the extremclv 

 close correspondence between the two signatures 

 has shown that one of them imist have lieen 

 traced. 



.\n .\merican counsel, in the course of his speech 

 in a trial of this kind, remarked: — "It has been 

 said that if a person meet in a waste place three 

 trees growing in a row. he thinks they were so 

 planted by man ; should he find the distances equal 

 he is convinced. Such accidental situation of thirty 

 trees would not e.xceed in strangeness a eoincidenee 

 like the one in this case." 



In this trial, known as tiie " S\lvia .Vnn llowland 

 case," in which evidence was given as to the coinci- 



I'hot, 



dence of all the letters in the disputed and genuine 

 signatures, Professor Pierce, of Harvard, stated in 

 the witness-box that the probability of all the thirt) 

 d(jwiiward strokes in the two writings coinciding 

 would be one chance in nine hundred and thirty-one 

 quintillions. 



I am indebted to the kindness of .\Ir. A. S. Osborn. 

 of New York, for the details and illustrations of a 

 celebrated trial, in which he gave evidence as to the 

 practical certainty of disputed signatures being 

 tracings. 



A])f)ut ten years ago a man named Rice died in New 

 York at the age of eighty 

 under somewhat suspicious 

 circumstances, leaving an 

 estate worth about five 

 millions of dollars. The 

 da\- after his death chetjues 

 for several hundred thousand 

 dollars, signed with his 

 name, were presented by an 

 attorney named Albert T. 

 Patrick. These cheques 

 being regarded as suspicious, 

 Patrick was arrested and put 

 on trial for the murder of 

 the old man. The jur\- 

 found him guilty, and he was 

 sentenced to death, though 

 the sentence was afterwards 

 commuted to imprisonment 

 for life. 



Alter presenting the 

 cheques Patrick had pro- 

 duced a will, according to 

 which the remainder of the 

 estate was made over to 

 him ; and his claim was 

 tried in the civil courts, 

 si m ultaneoush' with the 

 criminal trial. 



This alleged w ill consisted 



of four pages, and upon each 



of these was the signature, 



four signatures showed a 



in form, while on the 



0^' 



l-IGURE 230. 



isputed Sifjnatures on tl 



Rico- Patrick Case, 

 aphed iiiulc-r i,d,iss witli ruled liiu 



Will in IJK 



k\\ 



correspondence 



" \V. M. Rice 

 close 



other hand five genuine signatures of Rice, written 

 on the day the will was supposed to have been 

 signed, showed pronounced variations in size, 

 form, and shading, and when photographed under 

 glass with ruled sijuares did not exhibit the same 

 relative positions for the different parts of the 

 letters. (See Figure 230.) The Court, having had 

 these facts demonstrated to them, pronounced the 

 will a forgery, and the same judgment was unani- 

 mously given in twn Courts of Appeal to which the 

 case was carneil. In the liiuil judgment it was 



