Jl'NE. 1912. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



213 



.Much more conclusive, however, was the fact that 

 the right hand side of the receipt stamp upon the 

 earlier bill corresponded in every detail witii tlic Ktt 

 hand side of the stamp upon the later l>ill. W'ht'rc- 

 ever, in tearing the stamps apart, a short projection 

 had been left on the one there was a corresponding 

 long projection upon the other. 

 In fact, throughout the whole 

 of the seventeen projections 

 there was perfect coincidence 

 in ever\- point, as is shown in 

 Figure 2-57. This agreement 

 could scarcclv have been acci- 

 dental, the chances against 

 such complete correspondence 

 being oxerwhelming, while it 

 was most improbable that the 

 jeweller should have kept one 

 of two adjacent stamps for 

 three months and have then 

 affixed it to a second receipt 

 given to the same person. 



The onl\- alternative to these 

 conclusions was that the 

 stamps had been put at the 

 same time upon receipted bills 

 dated three months apart. 

 This view appeared convincing 

 to the insurance company, and 

 t'.icy refused to meet the claim. 



It is perhaps in tracing 

 th;' authorship of anonvmous 



letters that the circumstantial evidence of over- 

 looked trifles may prove the most valuable. 



Of late, such letters have frequentl\' been type- 

 written, evidently under the mistaken notion that in 

 this way the identity of 

 the writer would be f 

 effectually concealed. 

 But, unfortunately for 

 the anonymous letter- 

 writer, each typewriter 

 has its own idios\n- 

 cracies, and the differ- 

 ences that may be noted 

 between the letters upon 

 two new machines be- 

 come much more pro- 

 nounced with use. 



The t\pes become 

 worn and soon get out 

 of alignment, and as the 

 faults of spacing and 

 position repeat them- 

 selves or become more 

 accentuated it is not a 

 difficult matter to prove 

 that a letter must have 

 particular machine. 



Observations made by 



that letters written upon the same typewriter at 

 inter\'als of over a year will exhibit corresponding 

 peculiarities. 



This is seen in Figure 2J8, which shows enlarged 

 photographs of typewritten words. These words 

 were jjart of an anon\'mous letter received by a 

 clerk, accusing him of having 

 taken a sum of money, and 

 threatening him with exposure' 

 if he did not "■ return tlu; 

 amount."' 



Suspicion pointed to a cer- 

 tain individual as the sender 

 of the letter, and the suspicion 

 was pro\ed to be well founded 

 by the results obtained on 

 typing the words upon his 

 machine. 



On first thoughts it would 

 hardlv seem likely that the 

 sealing wax in the seals upon 

 a letter should afford any 

 useful information, but the 

 Fink case proves that the 

 composition of the wax may 

 furnish a strong link in a chain 

 of evidence. 



FlGL'RE 237. 

 Coinciding edges of Receipt Stamp; 



In October 

 Major Fink was 

 Old Bailey on 

 having forged 



return the 



return the 



Figure 238. 

 Typewriting done on the same Machine. 



been written upon a 

 the writer have shown 



f last year, 



tried at the 



the charge of 



a cheque by 



altering the amount from £10 to /,'10.000. 



The alteration had been clumsily done, and it was 

 obvious even upon casual inspection that there had 

 been tampering witli the words and figures. 



The ink in which 

 these alterations had 

 been made was of the 

 same kind as that of 

 Major Fink's endorse- 

 ment upon the back of 

 the cheque, and as that 

 contained in his fountain 

 pen, while it was of a 

 different kind from the 

 ink in the signatures on 

 the face of the cheque. 



The prisoner asserted 

 that the amount of the 

 cheque was only for ;f 10 

 when he had posted it, 

 and his suggestion was 

 that the letter had been 

 tampered with while in 

 the post. 



Now it had been sent to the bank in a registered 

 sealed envelope, and had been followed by a second 

 letter also in a sealed and registered envelope. A 



