Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-10-24

Miss Florence Hoffman, Miss Addie McCahan''
Philadelphia, Pa, fancy articles.
UNDER THE GLASS.
The Use Of the Microscope In Deteetine
FOrRerfes and Other Crimes.
A TALK WITH An ExPEKr-wHAT THE 1NsrRu-
MENT WILL REVEAL IN CASES OF FoRGERIEs
SOME INTERESTING cAsEs--IDENr1FY1so
BLOOD on MURDERER's GARMENTS
A STAR reporter was sitting In DR.. E, NJ.
Schaeffer's office the other evening talking
with him of the mysteries OF the micro
scope. DIR. Schaefer is called in as an
expert microscopic in great many cases
in the courts. "Tbis little instrument is
very valuable witness sometimes" he said, as
he put slide upon the microscope and ad-
dressed himself to the scribe "It is exceedingly
inquisitive and uncovers great many mystic
ries, not only of inanimate nature, but of men.
AS its master, am Informed Of many curious
things. A great many domestic tragedies,
which it would not do to mention, have come
under my notice through it. Those in that
case" and he walked over to a little glass-front
cabinet on the wall. "That contains parts of
some of whom are now living and some others
of whom are dead. Some very interesting and
curious incidents OF a domestic character are
brought TO my attention by folks who come to
have microscopic analyses made. Not very
long ago the result of one of these analyses
things an expert microseepist IS called for in
the courts is to testify as to blood on cloth
ing or something OF that sort in q murder trial.
or as to writing in cases OF forgery. can tell
instantly whether stain Is blood or not no
matter how dim and indistinct it Is, and this is
crime"
Gan you distinguish animal blood from
human asked the reporter.
II have frequently heard of expert witnesses
kpsfifyinl that certain stains M no
human blood. think they are wrong to as
sumo to so much knowledge. The little corpus
smaller than those of a mans, but it has been
discovered by careful study that the largest of
the sheep or other animals and the smallest Of
the man may be the same size. This OF course
does away with all certainty of distinction A
birds blood may be distinguished from human
because its eorpuscles are OF a different shape.
But this does not lessen the importance Of dis
covering blood stains on a murderer's clothing.
The circumstances and other evidence will do
"Some of the most interesting cases." he con-
tinued, ''are those of hand writing 1 have
made very thorough study of this under the
microscope, both as to individuality Of form,
and "a to various sorts OF fink, and the effect OF
time and condition upon them. can very
readily discover forgeries, interlineations or
this unless the man that did the work had the
same facilities for doing it that have for de-
tecting it--that Is unless the torger was micro
scopist. One case in which / testified was where
man was being sued on bond involving
100000. He acknowledged that he had signed
produced but claimed that the second nd name
had been added since. The person he
signed s,5!,r for, he said, was reliable and
not, and he Wv would never ever have s'n signed nai
the bond had his name been upon it at the
time. All the writing on the document was in
the same hand and appeared to have been
written at the same time. Under microscope
discovered by the age of the ink, that the SEQ
stoned nd 10 hi,
had been changed to them whenever II oc-
CURED in the bond. Another case was called
forged to notes by his son-in-law There were
ninety notes for one Thousand dollars EACH
which the Old man pronounced fOfgeries, and
on examining them found them to be such.
Without knowing anything OF his habits
knew as soon as 1 saw his genuine signature
that he always wrote it with a gold pen. The
fofyertes were all written with q steel pen. and
there were enough points of difference for me to
he able to distinguish them from the genuine
in every case.
"In murder trial in Maryland there was a
curious case of forgery involved. A faithless
wife and her lover determined to put trouble
some husband out of the way. The husband
remarked one morning at breakfas: that the
coffee tasted strange. A few minutes later he
fell in fit and died. At the inquest a note was
produced purpOrting to be from the deceased,
written Just before his death, conIessng that
he mad taken his own life. Nobody could be found
who had ever seen any Of the mans writing
except his signature, and that appeared to be
all right on the note. There was nothing to
compare the rest Of the writing with L exam
ined the note very carefully, aud found that
while the body Of the man uscript was written
freely and naturally, as If by some one used to
writing, the signature was very black and heavy
and seemed TO have been drawn. Another thing
was that while 1t must have taken considerable
pressure to make 1t SO black ithe whole was
written with pencill, there was no impression
through the paper. 1 pronounced the note a
forgery. knew beyond doubt that it was.
The friends of the widow threatened to kin the
expert. but they gave up the note as q defense
and took up another line, by which they Sc
cured an aequittal. After it was all over with
and the accused could not be again put on trial
her s1ster-in-law Dragged that she had written
the note, ana traced the signature from an
original by holding 1t against the window pane.
The hard smooth surface of the glass was what
had prevented the pencil lines from showing
through the paper: The question was raised in
another case as to whether an erasure on a
bond for $4,000 had been made before or
after it had been stamped with the agistrate' s
seal. Tue paper had q rough, wooily surface
where the erasure had been made and
the impression Of the seal had not
smoothed it down. This was held by
those who wanted to avoid the bond, to be an
evidence that the erasure had been made after
the seal was put on. tested this under the mi
croscope, and made experiments with . seal,
demonstrating that the seal was put on top OF
the erasure. Cases Of this sort are very nurner-
Gus, and some OF them get to be interesting.
But forgeres are not Is easily detected In the size
natures as In the body of the manuscript The
dottfng OF IFS and the crossing Of It's show
most. There are, however, many characteris-
ties In most signatures that cannot be counter
feited, so as not to show the fraud II tested By a
microscope"