The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1882-02-18
HANDWRITING.
Curious Facts About Letters and Manu-.
scripts.

"feS, i am an expert, II you call one
an expert who has passed fourteen years
of his life in poring over specimens Of
handwriting with magniiying glass.
In that time 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 a 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.
care there many experts in the
codntryl"
''No; there are generally one or two
in each large city who have taken up
the study of handwriting for the pleas
ure and interest which they find in il,
but, rs far as the real experts go, don't
think that there are more than three in
America-the Others are amateurs ANA
teurs certainly with considerable knowl-
edge, but still only amateurs"
''what is the frs, step you take when
a piece of forged writing is submitted 70
you ?"
IL mus, also have some Of the genuine
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"
"And then ?"
"And then comes 4 microscopic com
paTison OF all three. The frs, step is to
determine whether or not the name is
crooked. Now suppose you under
stand-everybody anderstauds----tha,
handwriting is peculiar and distinctive
But no one but those who have dug IN
handwriting all their lives know how
very peculiar and distinctive j; is The
oak and the hickory have different leaves,
but those leaves are not more different
than Smiths Bs, and, sIpposing fraud
ulen, oak wished TO produce leaf which
would be mistaken for 4 hickory leaf. il
might possibly throw of an imitation
whose shape would be al. right, bu,
whose veins would be all wrong
that is what We Judge by i, is :he inner
motive. One man may write your name
50 that j, will deceive bank cashier or
a Probate Cour, but he cannot do il so
tha, il will deceive ne.
And how do you judge p
"well. let me illustrate. Here is a
sheet Of paper written by copying
clerk YOU zee the same machine made
letters over and over again. To your
eye there IS nothing individual abou; il
AZ all, for the reason that YOU go hunt
ing for those little marks and -four
ishes with which people seek TO individ-
ullize their wTi;ing--iha; process would
be much like trying TO recognize beau
" OF the regency BY the position of her
patches. An expert goes frs, for the
capital letters, which were hrs, learned
and which contain most Of the unoon-
scious individuality OF the writer. No
iicc these ". each of them shaded in
the center imprecepiibly, and ending in
4 slovcnly turn, now up. now down.
getting more and more slovenly as the
page, 90 on and the hand tires. See
here he has changed the position Of
his pen from between the index and
thumb 10 the next two fingers, and the
writing, 10 your eye. Is iha; OF another
person. Bu; follow those Ns; don't
YOU see they are all the same p
"Do YOU believe tina; character can
be read from handwriting ,"
Most aSsuredly do--every one does
II you will take a letter from friend
and examine it closely, you will see
the character reflected again in the
characteristics OF his letter. II he is 4
wild, careless sort OF 4 fellow, there will
be a wild. helter-skelter gallop OF the
pen over the paper il he is methodioal,
accurate and precise, there it will be
again. saw 4 very curious illustration
OF this some wears ago when was irav-
cling in Ireland. stopped At Kildare
Castle, and while there was shown let
tiers written by about eight generations
of the Fi,zgeralds. To an exper; the
heredity shown in these notes was start
ling. OF course they were diverse, but
there was an under similarity among
them all As well marked and recogniza.
BILE Is the Hapsburg nose. From the
viliainous scratching done by Silken
Thomas, down TO the civilized steel
penmanship of the present Earl, the
hands were various but alike"
"How do YOU account tor the differ
ent styles of penmanship in vogue among
different nations9"
"That is a point was coming to-
You can tell German By his hand-wrI.
ting as readily As by his tongue, or 4
Frenchman either. Spain and Portugal
write, as a rule, one hand, while Italy
writes altogether another, and Greece
still third. There are race distinctions,
jus, as the Fitzgerald hand is a famil.
distinction. Writing divides itself into
great groups before il is separated into
small ones and into individual units
Take the stiff, angular writing of the
German, where there is but little origi'
nality, and you see the product of sys
TEN. Compare il with the utterly un
trammeled hand Of America, and we arr
forming a national hand, and you vii
see the enormous difference. There il
no prettier writing than the crampet
but systematic hand Of the nuns in ths
French converts. Here, again, after caus'
look for effects. There is more in th,
scrivener's art, young gentleman, thar
is dreamed Of in your philosophy"