East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1909-06-17

Declaring that the alleged will and
testament OF the late James w. Young,
the contract alleged to have been
signed by him and the letter alleged
TO have been written to Mrs. Clara
Young. are all forgeries, beyond the
shadow OF doubt, two handwriting
experts from Portland, have sprung
one of the big sensations of the fam
Gus will contest. The two experts are
Prof. w. w. Williams, principal of the
Rose City Business college and Prof.
NJ. A. Albin of the Albin-Williams
studio.
They not only declared the docu-
ments TO be forgeries but introduced
what they consider conclusive proof
of their contention and made demon
STATIONS In open court. They both
agreed as to the material points of
their testimony and insist that the
case offers one of the boldest pieces
of forgeries ever committed in the
United States.
Audacity Hard TO Duplicate.
In ordinary circumstances the most
that is attempted is the forgery Of a
signature, but in this case Prof Will
liams declares that the will was
forged and that to substantate this
forgery a two page letter and page
contract were also forged.
When placed on the stand Prof.
Williams declared that 1t was impos
sible for any man to write his sigma
ture exactly alike any two times. In
substantiation of this statement he
referred to Francis b. Courtney and !
Daniel T. Ames, two of the most ia !
nous authorities on hand writing in !
the world. According to Courtney, "if |
a contracted signature is identical |
with genuine one, one of the sigma
lures is certainly fraudulent, as it Is
impossible fer a person to write his
signature twice exactly alike"
Young's Signature Traced.
Following up this statement Prof.
Williams declared that the signature
os James w. Young TO the will, to the
letter, to the contract, and wherever
1t appeared in the body of the will or
contract, had been traced, He ex-
the signature upon a transparency
over a strong light and then superlm-
posing the paper upon which the for
gerry is to be made. In this manner
and in this manner only can two sig
natures be secured exactly alike, as
cording to Williams. To make his
statements the more impressive he
a N,.N tod ntr Of |
with a glass top and containing an
electric light.
He then produced tracings of four
different signatures or alleged sigma
lures of Young. Three of these were
taken from the will being contested
while the other was the signature to
the letter written twelve years later.
He also produced tracings of the word
Young taken from the body OF the !
will.
These tracings had each been SUBJ
jected TO 26 different measurements,
making a total OF more than a hun
dred in all, and 1t was shown that
they were all practically Identical
and that they could all be superim-
posed, one upon the other, and not !
show difference of more than the
width Of pencil mark in any of the
lines.
Alleged Signatures Impossible.
Insisting that 1t is impossible for c
a man to sign his name any two times
in succession, exactly alike, Prof. Will
llams declared that 1t was absurdly ri
diculous to maintain that J. w.
Young could repeat his signature af-
ter twelve years so that the last one n
could be placed over the first and all a
the lines would fall one upon the t
other Il
While holding that the signatures of a
Young had been forged by tracing, the