The Osceola times., 1881-11-19
HANDWRITING.
Some Curious Facts About Letters and
Manuscripts.


Manuscripts.
"Yes, am an expert, il you call one
an expert who has passed fourteen years
Of his life pouring over specimens OF
handwriting with maguiiying glass.
In that time a blind man would know
something about the peculiarities OF PEN
manship."
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 ii
has frequently happened in the past few
years that he has been called on to make
long journeys through the country to aid
in determining the genuineness OF hand
writing.
"Are there many experts in the coun-
try?'
"No; there are generally one or two in
each large city who have taken up the
study of handwriting for the pleasure
and interest which they find in it, but
as far as real experts 90 | don't think
that there are more than three in Amer
lea: 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?"
u must have also some OF the genuine
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 a microscopic COM
parison of all three The first step is to
determine whether or not you under
stand - everybody understands - that
handwriting ia 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 sup.
posing fraudulent oak wished TO pro-
duce a leaf which would be mistaken
for 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 go that it will eceve bank
cashier or probate court, 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 a copying
clerk; you see the same machine nade
letters over and over again. To your
eve there is nothing individual about it
at all. for the reason that you 90 hunting
for those little marks and iourishes with
which people seek to indiyidualize their
writing-that process would be much
like trying TO recognize a beauty of the
regency by the position Of her patches.
An expert goos first for the capital letters,
which were first learned and which con-
tain most of the unconscious individual
itv Of the writer. Notice these Ms, each
of them shaped in the center impercept-
IDLY, and ending in a sloyenly turn, now
up, now down, getting more and more
slovenly as the pages go on and the hand
tires. See here; he has changed the 20.
sition Of his pen from between the in,
dex 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 thev are all the same?"
"Do YOU believe that character can be
read from handwriting"
"Most assuredly do-every one does
II vou will take letter from a friend
and examine it closely you will see the
characteristics ofhis mind reflected again
in the characteristics of his letter. lfht
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 precise there it will be
again. | saw 6 very curious illustration
Of this some years ago when was travel
ing in Ireland. | stopped at Kildare
castle and while there was shown letters
written by about eight generations OF
the Fitzgeralds. To an expert the her.
edity shown in the notes was startling
OF course they were diverse, but there
was an under similarity among them all
as well marked aud recognizable as the
Hapsburg nose. From the villainous
scre,ching done by Silken Thomas, down
TO the civilized steel penmanship of the
present earl, the hands were various but
alike"
'1low do you account for the different
STYLES Of penmanship in vogue among
different nations?"
"That is a point was coming to. You
can tell a German by his handwriting as
readily as by his tongue, or French
man either. Spain and Portugal write as
a rule one hand, while Italy writes alto
gether another, and Greece still third
There are race distictions, Just as the
Fitzgerald hand is family distinction.
Writing divides itself into great groups
before it is separable into small ones and
into individual units Take the stiff
angular but little originality and you see
the product of a system. Compare it
with the Utterly untrammeled hand of
America, aid We aiu forming d national
hand, and you will zee the enormous
difference. There is no prettier writing
than the cramped but symmetrical hand
of the nuns in the French converts.
Here, again, after cause look for effect.
There Is more in the scriveners' art,
young gentleman. than is dreamed of in
your philosophy"
af