The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-05-26
MAX'S TRACING
WAS FOUND AWRY
The Expert Permits Mrs.
Craven to Score a Good
Point.
Comparisons of Writing That
Did Not Bear Out His
Sworn Evidence.
It Was a Long and Tedious SESSION in
Which Chirogr aphicai Oddities
Were Talked About.

Expert Max GumpeI dubbed over while
essaying to cast dark shadows on the va
ldity of the pencil will during yester-
day mornings proceedings in the Fair
Craven trial, and the result was that a
heavy fall was taken out OF him by Attor-
ney W. w. Footc of the defense.
1t happened that the excitable Max had
resorted 10 a new process of demonstra-
ton and illustration in giving his evil
dence. He had put aside his microscopes
and other scopes and substituted in their
places number OF sheets OF gelatine pa
per with which he proceeded, aided by his
acrobatic pen, 10 make trecings of certain
words in the disputed will in order TO
show that they were duplicated in appear
ance often enough 10 warrant his opinion
that the will itself was fabrication OF
tracings. He picked out the word "be-
queath," traced it, and then told the jury
that his tracing would fit to nicely every
"be queath" that appeared in the will. He
was getting along swlmmingly until lie
fell into the hands of Mr.. Foote, who had
asked permission of the court to ask the
witness a question or two.
Mr. Foote, il soon developed, had found
some "bequeaths" that the Gumpel trac-
ing did not fit, and he took the expert
sharply 10 task for attempting to lead the
jury astray.
Gumpel became somewhat ratified and
insisted that it was good tit.
.'Oh, it is, is it?' said Mr.. Fooie. "Well,
we will see about that"
The attorney placed the tracing over
one of the words under discussion and
handed it 10 the jury. 1t was easily OBJ
served that there was half an inch of diff
ference in the length of the two words and
b utlittle similarity otherwise.
That was a hard one ON Gumpel, and
Mr.. Foote smiled tr .umphantly.
Gumpel consumed the remainder of the
forenoon session in attempting 10 demon
strate on the blackboard the truth of his
assertion that the "pencir' will was put
together slowly and with a hesitating
hand. He depended tor the greater part
of his opinion upon the alleged wavering
of the lines and absence of ''pen pressure"
in proper places.
Gumpel resorted to his geatine paper
again when court reconvened for the
afternoon session, this time, at the di-
rection of Mr.. Mitchell, making tracing
of the word dollars" on the fifth line of
the will. The tracing was placed in evi.
dence and marked as an exhibit for the
plaintiffs, after which the jury was given
expert had executed an honest copy. The
process OF shifting the tracing from one to
another Of the words dollars" appearing
in various places in the will, was then
gone through with, and the mem ers of
the jury were kept marching around in q
circle and in turn bending oyer Gumpe!'s
experimental table, so as to get squint
at his handiwork.
1t was very like the scene one witnesses
Int v1rn nj yrh wa fctr "a .
friends and relatives of the departed file
by the casket and take their farewell look
at the mar ble-like features of the corpse.
By the time this had been repeated half
dozen or more times it was plain that
the twelve men, good and true, were get
ting weary OF the performance and were
inclined to look upon 1t all as monkey
business, to borrow favorite expression
from the streets. 1t got SO finally that
sons carefully and suspiciously they
would content themselves with just a
passing glance, and some of them even
slipped out of the rotating procession and
didn't look at GumpePs gelatine at all.
Another dollars" appearing on the
second page Of the will, was next traced
and the jurors merry.go-round was put in
motion again. Gumpei said that in his
judgment this particular word was an
other copy. BY means of his "spyglass, F"
as Mr.. Foote always calls it, he thought
he could detect evidences of the word
having been peced together and after
ward retouched.
The expert got mixed up with Mr.. Foote
over this tracing.
The attorney had been making some
more comparisons himself and han found
that Gumpel's tracing did not fit one Of
the words dollars" at all.
He Loot No time in pailin aftoDtiop To
the discovery. Gumpel shifted the trac-
ing around and around in an effort to
remedy the discrepancy, but Mr.. Foote
pushed Jim away from The table and de-
mandad that the jury take another look
al the tracing and the original.
This the court order done.
Gumpel wanted to explain and being
granted the privilege said that the person
who executed the pencil will could have
traced part of the word at one time and
part at another. For this reason he said
the geatine tracing would not jibe with it
unless it was shifted so as to make two
com parisons-that is, separate com pari-
sons OF each half OF the word.
"But you have sworn here that this
word IS not tracing at all; you have
sworn that it is COPY, declared Mr..
Fooie.
Gumpel squared himself by acknowledg g.
ing that he meant copy" instead of
tracing" but he could not convince Mr..
Foore that his ex periment with thst word
dollars was il any way success or
that it would work with the jury.
At this juncture of the proceeding Asso-
ciate Counsel Wheeler made q formal re-
quest that the plaintiff be permitted to
make an elaborate experiment and demon.
stration in court for the purpose of lend
ing support 10 their claim that various
words in the will had been traced What
he proposed to do was to have each Juror
write his name ten times, and then have
Gumpel show with his gelatne that in no
case would any two of them be found