Bismarck weekly tribune., 1886-01-29
THE MICROSCOPE IN FoRoERlEa



Washington Star.I
A reporter was sitting IN Dr. II M. {.
Schaeffer's office the other evening talking
with him Of the mysteries Of the micro
scope DR. Schaeffer is called In as an az.
pert microscopist in great many cases In
the courts This little instrument is q
very valuable witness sometimes, he said.
as he put slide upon the microscope and
addressed himself to the scribe aIt is ex.
ceedingly inquisitive, and uncovers q great
many mysteries, not only OF inanimate ma.
ture. but OF men. As It's master, I am III.
formed Of a great many curious things,
Some OF the most interesting cases, arc
thoss of hand writing. I have made very
thorough study Of this under the micro
scope, both as TO individuality Of form and
various sorts Of ink. and the effect Of time
and condition upon them. can very
readily discover forgeries, interlineations,
or erasnrea do not think could be- de-
ceived In this unless the man that did the
work had the seme facilities for doing Il
that have for detecting it-that is unless
the forger was q microscopist
Zone case in which testified was where 4
man was being sued on bond involving
100000 He acknowledged that he had
signed bond for one Of the parties named
In the bond produced, but claimed that the
the second name had been added since.
The person he signed for, he said, was re-
liable and trustworthy, but the other person
was not, and he would never have signed
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 q
microscope. l discovered by the age Of the
ink, that the second name had been added
some time after the paper was signed, and
that the pronoun 'him' had been changed to
them whenever it occurred on the bond.
"Another case was called into was where
an old mans name had been forged to notes
by his son-in-law. There were ninety notes
Of $1,000 each. which the old man pro-
nounced forgeries, and on examining them
I found them to ba such. Without know
ing anything Of his habits, knew as soon
as saw his genuine signature that he al.
ways wrote with gold pen. The forgeries
were ali written with steel pen and there
were enough points Of difference for me to
be able to distinguish them from the
genuine in every case. In a murder
trial in Maryland there was q curious
case of forgery involved. A faithless wife
and her lover determined to put a trouble
some husband out of the way. The hus-
band remarked one morningg at breakfast
that the coffee tasted strange A few min-
utes later he fell in fit and died. At the
inquest note was produced purporting to
be from the deceased, written just before
his death, confessing that he had taken his
own life.
aNobody 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. I examined
the note very carefully and found that
while the body Of the manuscript was writ
ten freely and naturally, as IL 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 (the whole was written
with psnciD, there was no impression
through the paper. pronounced the note
forgery. I knew beyond doubt that it
was The friends of the widow threatened
to kill the expert but they gave up the
note as defense and took up another line,
by which they secured an acquittal. After
it was all over with and the accused could
not be again put on trial, her sister-in.law
Dragged that she had written the note, and
traced the signature from an original by
holding it against the window pane. Tho
hard, smooth surface Of the glass was what
had prevented the pencil lines from show
ing through the paper.