The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-09-18


The celebrated "Howland Will
Case" is now on trial in Boston. Miss
HeIty Robinson, OF New Bedford, now
Mrs. Green, is worth tve millions OF
dollars. Her aunt, Miss Sylvia Ann
Rowland, left her an annuity which
adds $40, 600 to her income. The rest OF
her Hunt's property was willed to DIFF
feTent persons. TO II will formerly
made by Miss Rowland, leaving all
her property to her neice, is attached IA
codicil declaring the other will, by
which various persons were benehtted,
was extorted from her by outside
parties, and she prayed the judge 10 de-
eide in favor OF Miss Rowland. This
codicil is in the handwriting OF
Miss Robinson (Green) with Miss
Howland' s signature in duplicate. II
is claimed by those resisting her that
Miss Robinson forged it. This accusa-
ton Is based not on the ground of the
dissimilafity of the handwriting, but
of its being an exact copy of the sigma
ture in the original will. 1t is asserted
that the signatures in duplicate
were obtained by tracing them from
the signature to the original will,
and that it is next to impossible for any
person to write three signatures exactly
alike. This idea has drawn upon the
resources OF science and art. Photo
graphers and experts have been exam
lining and experimenting upon this
point. Mr.. Crossman, for the defense,
testifies that he has spent nearly tive
months in examining many hundreds
of signatures of many well known per-
sons; comparing the coincidence by su-
periinposing one on the other on glass
in front of a window, and also by trhc-
ing and superimposing the tracings.
He snys there was greater similarity IN
Miss Howland's signatures, forty or
fifty of which he compared with each
other, than in any other case; and he
considers the two signatures TO the de-
tached sheets to be genuine. On the
other hand Mr.. Southworth, after simi-
lar researches, declares that the three
signatures coincide with mathematical
accuracy, not only letter for letter and
space for space, but also that each has
the same slant 10 the base line Of each
paper. so that the eye sees them paral-
lei, His test mony covers nifty pages,
and he prOnounces the two contested
signatures to be forgeries, executed by
tracing.
Professor Pierce, of Harvard College,
has tested II by the mathematical doc
trine OF chances. He concludes, after
having ascertaiued the relative fre-
uuency OF coincidence by comparing
numerous signatures OF Miss Rowland
TO bills OF sale of vessels, etc, that, in
her case, "this phenomenon tor coinci-
dence) could occur only once in two
thousand six hundred and sixty-siX
millions OF millions of times, or
2,666, 900, COG. .OOO, 600 900, ,OOO." This num-
Der, the professor remarks, "lar trans
cends human experience. So vast an
improbability is practically an impossi-
bility. Such evanescent shadows Of
improba bility cannot belong to actual
life. They are unimaginably less than
the least things which the law cares
not for" And his conclusion from
these data is thus expressed: "Under a
solemn sense of the responsibility in
volved in the assertion, l declare that
the coincidence which has here occurred
must have had its origin in an inten.
ton to produce il"
The .'chances are against Mrs.
Green's attempt to eke out her little
plttance with her HunI's property. She
must live economically upon her five
pNtIIfnnS