The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1881-12-09
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enhe Cnffeus He4a ebrgt Lettefs ana
HfaHsacffpte.
eyes, L am an expert, IL you CALI one
an expert who hos passed fourteen years
Of his life poring over specimens gof
handwriting with o magnifyipg glass.
Inthat timea bind man would know
something about the peculiarities oil
penmanahip"
This was the remafk of Mr.. Henry
Sewer, whose home Ia in Philadelphia,
where he combines the avocations Of
conveyancer and writing expert, and
IL has frequently happened in the last
few years that he has been called on to
make long journeys through the coun-
try TO aid in determining the genuine
ness Of handwriting.
care there many experts. in the
countryT
"No; there are generally one or two
in each large city who have taken up
the study Of handwriting for the p cas-
ure and interest which they find in IL,
but as far as real experts go / don't
think that there are more than three
in America; the others are amateurs
amateurs certainly with considerable
knowledge, but still only amateurs"
"What is the first step you take when
piece of forged writing is submitted
to you"
al must havo also some OF the genu-
inc writing of the person whose name
has been forged, and, il possible, some
too OF the person who is suspected Of
having committed the crime"
81 And thenT' l
"And then comes microscopic COM
parison of all three. The first step is to
determine whether or not the name is
crooked. Now ] suppose you under
stand-everybody understandable
handwriting is peculiar and distinctive.
But no one but those who have dug in
handwriting all their lives know how
very peculiar and distinctive it is. The
oak and the hickory have different
leaves, but those leaves are not moro
different than Smiths BIS and Jones'
Bs, and supposing fraudulent oak
wished to produce leaf which would
be mistaken fer hickory leaf it might
possibly throw off an imitation whose
shape would be all right, but whose
veins would be all wrong-that is what
we judge by /; it is the inner motive.
One man may write youE name so that
it will deceive bank cashier or pro-
bate court, but he cannot do it so that
it will deceive me-"
"And how do you iudge?"
"Well, let me illustrate. Here is a
sheet of paper written by copying
clerk; you see the same machine-made
letters over and over again. To your
eye there is nothing individual about
it at all, for the reason that you go
hunting for those little marks and
fourishes with which people seek to
| individualize their writing-that pro-
cess would be much like trying to re-
cognize beauty of the regency by the
position OF her patches. An expert goes
first for the capital letters, which were
! first learned and which contain most OF
the unconscious individuality of the
writer. Notice these Ms, each of them
shaped in the center imperceptibly, and
ending in a slovenly turn, now up, now
down, getting moro and moro slovenly
as the pages go on and the hand tires.
See here; he has changed tho position
of his pen from between the index and
thumb to the next two fingers, and the
writing, to your eye, is that of another
person. But follow those Ms; don't
you see they are all the same?'
"Do you believe that character can
be read from handwriting"
"Most assuredly 1 do-every one
does. II you will take letter from o
friend and examine it closely you will
see the characteristics of his mind re-
fieeted aSnin in the characteristics of
his letter. Ii he IS wild, careless sort
Of fellow, there will be wild helter-
skelter gallop OF the pen over the paper;
il he is methodical, accurate and pre-
else there it will be again. I saw very
curious illustration of this some years
ago when was travelling in Ireland. 1
stopped at kildare castle and while
there was shown letters written by about
eight generations Of the Fitzgeralds.
TO an expert the heredity shown in
these notes was startling. OF course
they were diverse, but there was m
under similarity among them eli az
we'll marked and recognizable as the
Hapsburg nose. From the villainous
scratching done by Silken Thomas,
down 20 the civilized steel penmanship
Of the present earl, the hands were
various but alike"
SHOW do you account for the differ
ent styles Of penr;Snship in vogue
among different natior S {"
"That ia a point ! was coming to.
You can tell German by his handWri-
ting ss readily as by his tongue, or a
Frenchman either. Spain and Portugal
write rs q rule ono hand, while Italy
writes altogether another, and Greece
still thiid. There arc race distinc-
tons, just as the Fitzgerald hand is q
family distinction. Writing divides it.
SELF into great groups before it is separ-
able into small ones and into indi-
vidual units. Take the stiff angular
writing OF the German where there is
but little originality and you see the
product Of q system. Compare it with
the utterly untrammeled hand OF
America, and we are forming a national
hand, and you viii see the enormous
difference. THERE'S no pretGer writing
than the cramped but symmetrical hand
Of the nuns in tho French ccnvents.
Here, again, after cause look for effect.
There is moro in the scriveners' art,
young gentleman, than is dreamed OF
in your philosophy"