The herald., 1897-10-24

ever, he went on to finish the word,
copying the letters "u," "e," "a" and
9TH" with such care that he found it
necessary to take the pencil off the pa
per after making each letter-some-
thing that Fair was never guilty Of.
At the same time. his extreme care in
copying Fairs handwriting had the ef-
feet of making his orthodox "a stand
out all the more prominently.
The word equally" is also an inter-
esting study. By looking at this word,
as it appears on line six of the forged
will. it will be seen that there is a
break between the "e' and the 81"
and an unusual spacing from the 'T'
to the ''y' in the final syllable. This
remarkable spacing, as well as the
other peculiarities of the word, are ex-
actly duplicated in other parts of the
document. showing conclusively that
the forger made the stupid mistake of
deliberately copying his own manufac-
tured word.
These examples of clumsy work
might be continued indefinitely, but it
will be sufficient to call attention to
one more instance. Take the word
this" in line two of the will 1t will
be observed that the capital "T' is con-
tinuous with the "h," the conspicuous
shade being made by retouching; that
between the "h" and the "i'' there is a
rest and a splice of the connecting line,
also line separated at the base of the
''i'' as it turns to connect with the IS
These are three specimen breaks out of
five hundred and odd of similar ma
ture in the two pages of the will.
The capital "I' was evidently an eye
sore to the forger, for in the will it
varies exceedingly in it's form, and has
been so frequently retouched as to
make it a freak letter as it appears un-
| der the microscope. An example of
this variation and retouching as fairly
represented in lines three and four of
the forged WILL Any one can see, even
without the aid of a microscope, that
the 'I' in line four is made in several
! parts, while Fair made this letter bold
ly without taking pen from paper.
i Another glaring example of the way
in which the forged writing was re-
touched is seen on lines two and four
of the will The word my" in line two
is very clumsy forgery. In effect it
is wis, while the same word in Fairs
writing, as shown in the magnified re-
production, is different thing alto
gether, plainly and accurately written.
A curious feature in the forging of this
word, and one that made detection
more than easy, is that the word is re-
peated eighteen times in the will, and
in sixteen instances has a peculiar
terminal hook-shown in lines two and
four-added to the ~" 1t is perfectly
plain that the copy before the forger
presented the word with "y' having
final hook and that the forger sup
posed this to be Fairs habit. AS a
matter of fact, in an equal number of
"my's" taken from Fairs writing there
are but two "y's' finished with hook.
| So much for the specific errors COM
mitted. Now a few words as to the
general differences between the forged
and the genuine handwriting. 1t will
be seen that in the former the loops of
all letters are shorter and more regu-
lar than in the genuine writing-for
example, in the ~" in line two and the
"f'' in line three; in fact. all the ex-
tended letters above and below the
lines show marked differences. Fairs
loops, it will be observed, run into and
even beyond the lines above and below
examples being seen in the very frs
letter "y," the "g" in line four
Throughout the alleged will the space.
between the words. letters, and line!
vacillate greatly, while IN those re
spects Fairs writing is more than us
ually consistent. For instance, in tn,
will compare the spacing between tn,
first and second words of the thirt
line and the three last words, between
the words my and Sister in lin
four, and after equally" and the char
acter "&" in line six. No such absurt
extremes occur in Fairs genuine writ
ing.
Another glaring difference is tn
shading of the letters-thick lines b.
the side of thin lines in eccentric varia