The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-11-03
HANDWRITING.
Some Curious Facts About Letters and
Manuscripts. ......s .f

munusCfIptss ..
"Yes, am an expert, if you call one
an expert who has passed fourteen years
of his life poring over specimens of
handwriting with magnifying glass.
In that time blind man would know
something about the peculiarities of
penmanss'p."
This was the remark of Mr.. Henry
Sewer, whose home is in Philadelphia,
where he combines the avocations of a
conveyancer and writing expert, and
it 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.
"Are there many experts in the
countryY'
"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 it,
but as far as real experts go I 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%
81 must have also some of the genu-
inc writing of the person whose name
has been forged, and, if possible, some
too of the person who is suspected of
having committed the crime"
"And then?"
"And then comes microscopic COM
parison of all three. The first step is to
determine whether or not the name is
crooked. Now I suppose you under
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 more
different than Smiths Bs and Jones'
Bs, and supposing fraudulent oak
wished to produce a 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 your name so that
it will deceive bank cashier or pro-
bate curt, but he cannot do it so that
it will deceive me-"
"And how do you iudge?"
"Well, let me illustrate. Here is q
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 slovenly turn, now up, now
down, getting more and more slovenly
rs the pages go on and the hand tires.
See here; he has changed the 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 / do-every one
does. If you will take letter from a
friend and examine it closely you will
see the characteristics of his mind re-
fected again in the characteristics of
his letter. If he is a wild, careless sort
of fellow, there will be wild helter-
skelter gallop of the pen over the paper;
if 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. ]
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 an
under similarity among them all as
we'll marked and recognizable as the
Hapsburg nose. From the villainous
scratching done by Silken Thomas,
down to the civilized steel penmanship
of the present earl, the hands were
various but alike"
Chow do you account for the differ
ent styles of penmanship in vogue
among different nations p
"That is point 1 was coming to.
You can tell German by his handwri.
ting as readily as by his tongue, or a
Frenchman either. Spain and Portugal
write as rule one hand, while Italy
writes altogether another, and Greece
still a third. There are race distinc
tions, just as the Fitzgerald hand is 9
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 i.
but little originality and you see tn,
product of system. Compare it will
the utterly untrammeled hand o
America, and we are forming a nationa
hand, and you will see the enormou
difference. There is no prettier writing
than the cramped but symmetrical hanC
Of the nuns in the French ccnvents
Here, again, after cause look for effect
There is more in the scriveners' art
young gentleman, than is dreamed o
in YOUR philosophy"