The Jersey City news., 1902-11-13
LOOP The LOOP
Handwriting Experts Have a
Session in the Hit Case
in chaacery.
MYSTERIESOF A SIGNATURE
Molineux Witnesses Con ira
dict Each Other on Dis
puted $a2, 900 Note.
MYSTERIESO OF A SIGNATURE

trial, being out of a job now that the
famous case is over, two of them came
over to ChanceFy Chambers yesterday
and spent all day before Vice Chancellor
Stevenson positively affirming and deny
ing the alleged forgery of Mrs. Augusta
A. Thompson's. note for $50, ,000 held by
Adrian Hit, of No. 233 Palisade ave-
nue., and contested by Dr.~W. w. 'varick,
administrator of Mrs. Thompson's estate.
Mrs. Thompson dead some years.
would have beer astotnded to learn that
two experts could DISCOURSE for hours
over her signature and .talk about
''vacillation of form and alignment"
Continuity of notion Spacing slant
pressure and shading 7 intersections,
loops'' mot the Coney Island variety,
'skips and lifts" 1t reminds one of
Moliere's hero, in LIE Bourgeois Gem
telhomme," who was amazed to discover
that he had been talking prose for forty
years and didn't know it!
EXPERTS VS.. EXPERTS.
On former hearings of this suit before
the Vice Chancellor, David N. Carvalho.
expert, and J. w. Kinsly, ditto, swore
that taking about forty signatures of
Mrs. Thompson to leases, checks, etc.,
not disputed by either side and compar-
ing them with the signature on the dis
puted note, they declared the same woln-
an did not write them all and the note
was forged. So
But yesterday Daniel T. Ames, an
other handwriting sharp, after doing the
same things with the standards of COM
parison, told the Vice Chancellor that he
was sure that the signatures were one
aud the same and the note was good.
At this assertion David Caryalho, who
was sitting between Lawyers J. B.
Vredenburgh and Isaac S. Taylor, coun-
sci for the estate, smiled superciliously
and scribbled away on piece of fools
cap framing questions for cross-exam-
ination.
what are your reasons for saying
that y; demanded the Vice Chancellor.
WHAT HE DISCOVERED.
Expert Ames spread the standards be-
fore him. examined photograph of the
disputed signature enlarged many times,
and glaneing at bundle of the stan
dards." replied:
Il find in the standards that the move
ment is natural and the forms, while
varying in like manner as in the disputed
signature, all clearly have the same yari-
ations. Her handwriting is vacillating
both in form and alignment. Even in the
standards there are more variations than
between them and the disputed signature,
and indeed the disputed signature would
be less difficult to pick out as genuine
than some of the standards"
Any hesitancy about the signature?'
NO" replied Ames, '.and / found no
indication of forgery. 1t is faithful re-
production of the writing habit and /
can't doubt it. The rare things found in
the signature are found in the standards
while a forger would only initiate the
common habits of the writer"
+ Ames talked for a long time on the for
nation of the o's in Thompson, the inter-
section of lines, lifts and breaks of the
pen in making the h,'change of direc-
tlon ana pressure. shading, slant and
spacing, distortion, variation and mani
festation until the court and lawyers
looked as if bromo seltzer was needed
Ames was positive the signature was gen
uine and Carvalho equally positive the
other way.
The case was adjourned until this
morning.
FORGER'S EARMARKS.
Daniel I. Ames was again on the
stand this morning explaining his reasons
for saying that the disputed signature
was genuine. The Vice-C Chancellor lis
tened attentively to a long-winded ex-
planation of whit forger would do and
would not do, when he interrupted
Is it not an earmark of forgery that
the loops are larger, lines longer. and
spaces winder in the disputed signature
than in the standards?v
Ames thought at first it wasn't, and
then that it WAS, provided this was so,
and that wasn't. He talked about loops
and loops, and wouldn't arrive at any
other conclusion that the disputed sigma
ture was written by Mrs. Thompson.
His cross-examination will occupy the
entire day.