The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-05-25

Craven trial. 1t was direct examination
all day, too, but w. w. Foote will prob
ably cross-examiue the expert some time
during to-day's proceedings.
The morning wore away tediously with
Gumpel and his microscope. He was
| picking out letters and words here and
| there in the disputed will and deeds, and
! at the request of Attorney r. B. Mitchell
for the plaintiffs, Analysing them and en-
deavoring to convince the court and jury
that they were possessed of defects irdi-
eating forgery.
For instance, he ca lied attention to the
capital letter F in Senator Fairs sigma
ture and testified that the millionaire in
variably executed the cross on this letter
with a quick stroke of the pen. He said
that the same cross in the signatures to
the deeds and will have evidence of hav-
ing been drawn slowly and of having been
subsequently retouched so as to bring out
the SD AIDED lines.
Mr.. Foote took occasion to remark dur
ing the examination of Gumpel that the
expert must be in possession OF wonder
fui magnifying glass in order to see all
the defects he was testifylng 10, and asked
Gumpel to get him duplicate of it. The
expert promised 10 90 tue DSSL u6 COulU
to accom- modate counsel
When the afternoon session opened Mr..
Foote was granted permission to ask
Gumpel a few questions. He took the
witness to task for having testified that
one of his reasons for declaring Senator
Fairs signature to the disputed deed to
be sim ulated was the existence therein of
Roman ''r" instead OF an English 'r,"
sucn as he claimed was characteristic of
the millionaires handwriting. The a tor
ney handed Gumpel a bunch of letters
written at various times by Senator Fair
in his lifetime and admitted in evide nee
as exemplars of his writing. The experts
attention was called to dozen or more
Roman 'r's'' in these letters and he was
forced to admit that Senator Fair did not.
after all adhere rigidly to one particular
method OF forming the letters.
While this examination was going on
Mr.. Mitchell precipitated something OF a
rumpus by mumbling remark express
i've of ridicule concerning the importance
of the confession wrung from Gumpel by
Mr.. Foote. 1t was loud enough for the
jury to hear it and Mr.. Foote was on his
feet in twinBllng with stout protest
ssThese people have been making COM
plants about me for making side remarks
in court and have even gone to the court
privately and spoken about it, said Mr.
Foote with warmth. "They have been in
the habit of making side remarks them
selves right along. l made up my mind
that the next time they did it / would call
attention to it right out in open court and
not in private"
Mr.. Mitchell protested that his remark
was harmless, He had only said to his
associate, Mr.. Wheeler, that he could
knock out the apparent discrepancy in
Gumpel's evidence in two minutes.
There has been too much of this thing
going on in court" said Judge Slack
sharply. II will announce now that if I
hear any more complaints / will take ac-
ton that | think will stop it. / have the
rover and l propose to ercise it,"
Everybody promised to ''be good" in the
future and the case proceeded.
Gumpel was shown lot of letters in
which Senator FAIR used the Roman II. I"
but did not follow it with comma as The
expert had testified constituted another
| characteristic, Gumpel said that the par
ticular omissions that Mr.. Foote called
attention to were exceptions to the rule.
He thought, however, that in line cases
out of ten Senator Fair followed his ''r's'
with comma. 1t was habit, he thought.
The direct examination was now re-
| sumed and Mr.. Mitchell called for Gum
| pel's opinion of the pencil will. The ex-
| pert said that in his opinion the will was
| not writing at all, but drawing" He
claimed to be able to detect evidences
that the words had been pieced and
patched together. The document he
| thought, had been ''drawn" with soft
| pencil Besides, in his opinion, there
was no uniformity in the general appear
ance of the handwriting in the will. He
said the strokes of the letters leaned
toward the left in some places and to the
right in others.
RGumpeI produced memorandum from
his inside POCKET and was going to testify
with the aid of 1t regarding the mum Der Of
alleged retouching and piecing he said he
had discovered in the will when he exam
ined it last year. This was objected to by
the defense on the ground that If he were
the expert he posed as being he had no
right to give evidence from data. An ar
gument ensued in which counsel on both
sides quoted literally from lawbooks.
The court finally ruled that Gumpei must
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