Disputed Handwriting Part 9

It is not an uncommon occurrence that wills and other public doc.u.ments are changed by the insertion of extra or subst.i.tuted pages, thereby changing the character of the instrument. Where this is suspected careful inspection of the paper should be made--first, as to its shade of color and fiber, under a microscope; second, as to its ruling; third, as to its water-mark; fourth, as to any indications that the sheets have been separated since their original attachment; fifth, as to the writing--whether or not it bears the harmonious character of the continuous writing, with the same pen and ink, and coincident circ.u.mstances, or if typewritten, whether or not by the same operator or the same machine. It would be a remarkable fact if such change were to be made without betraying some tangible proof in some one or more of the above enumerated respects.

Books of accounts are often changed by adding fict.i.tious or fraudulent entries in such s.p.a.ces as may have been left between the regular entries or at the bottom of the pages where there is a vacant s.p.a.ce.

Where such entries are suspected, there should be at first a careful inspection of the writing as to its general harmony with that which precedes and follows, as to its size, slope, s.p.a.cing, ink, and pen used, and if in a book of original entry, the suspected entry should be traced through other books, to see if it is properly entered as to time and place, or vice versa.

The judgment by the naked eye as to the colors or shades of two inks in the same paper or doc.u.ment is very likely to be erroneous for the reason that when a lighter ink is more heavily ma.s.sed than a darker one the effect on the eye is as if it were the darker. Under a microscope or magnifying gla.s.s the field is more restricted, the finer lines are broadened, and one has larger areas of ink to compare with less surface of strongly contrasted white paper. Then, again, an ink without noticeable bluish tinge to the naked eye may appear quite blue under the gla.s.s where the films of ink are broadened and thinned and their characters better observed.

In order to judge whether two marks have been made by the same ink, they should be viewed by reflected light to note the color, l.u.s.ter and thickness of the ink film. Many inks blot or "run" on badly sized paper--i.e., the lines are accompanied by a paler border which renders their edges less well defined.

Even on well-sized papers this cla.s.s of inks usually exhibits only a stained line of no appreciable thickness where the fluid has touched the paper.

The copying and glossy inks, which often contain a considerable quant.i.ty of gum, do not "run" or blot even on partially sized paper, and show under the gla.s.s a convexity on the surface of the line and an appreciable thickness of the film.

It does not always follow when an ink has made a blur on one part of the paper and not on another that the paper has been tampered with. A drop of water accidentally let fall on the blank page will frequently affect the sizing in that place, and, besides, all papers are not evenly sized in every part.

The inks rich in gum, or those concentrated by evaporation from standing in an open inkstand, give a more l.u.s.trous and thicker stroke.

Some inks penetrate deeper into the paper than others, and some produce chemical effects upon the sizing and even upon the paper itself, so that the characters can easily be recognized on the underside of the sheet. In some old doc.u.ments the ink has been known to so far destroy the fiber of the paper that a slight agitation of the sheet would shake out as dust much of the part which it covered, thus leaving an imperfect stencil plate of the original writing.

Distilled water is very useful in many cases to ascertain whether paper has been scratched and partially sized or treated with resin. If it has not been altered by chemical agents, the partial sizing and the resinous matter used give to the paper a peculiar appearance. Sizing takes away from the whiteness of the paper, and, thinned by the scratching or was.h.i.+ng, it absorbs much more quickly even when it has been partially sized.

A simple mode of operation is to place a doc.u.ment or paper suspected of being a forgery, on a sheet of paper or better still, on a piece of gla.s.s; then moisten little by little with a paint brush all parts of it, paying close attention to the behavior of the liquid as it comes in contact with the paper.

By means of water one can discover what acids, alkalis, or salts the parts of the paper with colored borders or white spots contain.

With the aid of a pipette cover these spots with water and let it remain for ten or fifteen minutes; then with the pipette remove the liquid and examine the products it holds in solution. Afterwards make a comparative experiment on another part of the paper which is neither spotted nor whitened.

If the original writing has been done with a very acid ink on a paper containing a carbonate, such as calcium carbonate, the ink, in attacking the calcareous salt, stains the paper, so that if the forger has removed the ferruginous salts this removal is denoted by the semi-transparence that water gives to the paper.

To study carefully the action of the water it is necessary to repeat the experiment several times, allowing the paper to dry thoroughly before recommencing it.

According to Tarry, it is necessary to have recourse to alcohol to discover whether the paper has been scratched in any of the parts and then covered with a resinous matter to prevent the ink from blotting.

Place the doc.u.ment on a sheet of white paper and with a paint brush dipped in alcohol of specific gravity 0.86 or 0.87 cover the place supposed to have been tampered with. It may be discovered if the writing thickens and runs when the alcohol has dissolved the resin.

Hold the paper moistened with alcohol between the eye and the light; the thinning of the paper shows the work of the forger.

Some more skillful forgers use paste and resin at the same time to mask their fraudulent operations; in this case luke-warm water should be first employed and then alcohol; water to dilute the paste, and alcohol to dissolve the resin. The result is that the ink added on the places scratched out spreads, and the forgery is easily seen.

Test-papers (litmus, mauve, and Georgina paper) serve to determine whether a paper has been washed either by the help of chemical agents, acids incompletely removed, or the surplus of which has been saturated by an alkali, or by the help of alkaline substances. The change of the color to red indicates an acid substance; an alkali would turn the reddened litmus paper to blue, and the mauve and Georgina test-papers to green.

Take a sheet of test-paper of the same dimensions as the doc.u.ment to be examined, moisten it, and cover it underneath with a sheet of Swedish filter-paper. These two sheets together (the filter-paper underneath) are then applied to the doc.u.ment which has been moistened already. The whole is then laid between two quires of paper, covered by a weighted board, and left in this condition for about an hour. At the end of this time examine the test-paper to see if it has partly or altogether changed color. This examination finished, put the test-paper in contact with distilled water, to be afterwards removed and tried by appropriate tests to discover the nature of the alkali or acid present.

Silver nitrate is also used to discover whether the paper has been washed with chlorine or chlorites. A paper in that way becomes acid.

The chlorine changes to hydrochloric acid, which dissolves in the water with which the suspected doc.u.ment or paper is moistened, and at the contact of silver nitrate little spots of silver chloride appear.

There are various other tests such as gallo-tannic acid or infusion of nutgalls prepared a short time before application and may be used with advantage to restore writings that have been removed by was.h.i.+ng.

Place the doc.u.ment or paper on a sheet of white paper and moisten the whole of its surface with a paint brush dipped in the reagent, taking care not to rub it or strongly press it. When the surface is well impregnated allow the solution to act for an hour, and at the end of this time examine the doc.u.ment again. Then moisten it a second time and the following day, examine the results. Repeat the moistening several times if necessary, for it often takes some time to make the traces of writing reappear.

Chevallier and La.s.saigne experimented together on the effect produced by the vapor of iodine on the surface of the papers or doc.u.ments upon which the alteration of writing was suspected. Take a bottle with a wide mouth from ten to eleven centimeters in height, and the opening from five to six centimeters in width. This last is covered by a disk of unpolished gla.s.s. Into the bottom of this vessel introduce from twenty to thirty grams of iodine in crystals.

Place the portion of paper on which the vapor of iodine is to act at the opening of the bottle, and cover it with the stopper of unpolished gla.s.s, on which put a weight so as to exert a slight pressure, and in order that the aperture may be hermetically closed. Then allow the vapor of iodine to act on the dry paper for three or four minutes at the temperature of 15 to 16 C. and examine it attentively. When the surface has not been spotted by any liquid (water, alcohol, salt water, vinegar, saliva, tears, urine acids, acid salts, or alkalis) a uniform pale-yellow or yellowish-brown tinge will be noticed on all parts of the paper exposed to the vapor of iodine.

Otherwise a different and easily distinguished tinge shows itself on the surface that has been moistened and then dried in the open air.

Machine-made papers with starchy and resinous sizing give such decided reactions that sometimes it is possible to distinguish by the color the portion of the paper treated with alcohol from that moistened with water. The spot produced by alcohol takes a kind of yellow tinge; that formed by water becomes a violet blue, more or less deep, after having dried at an ordinary temperature. As to the spots produced by other aqueous liquids, they approach in appearance, though not in intensity, those occasioned by pure water. Feeble acids, or those diluted by water, act like water; but the concentrated mineral acids, in altering more or less the substance of the sizing, produce spots that present differences.

Spots which become apparent by using vapor of iodine are due to chemical agents whose strength has altered either the fibers of the surface, or the paste uniting them.

In a word, the test of a doc.u.ment or paper by vapor of iodine has the double advantage of indicating the place of the supposed alteration and operating afterwards with appropriate reagents to bring back the traces of ink. It is only the reappearance of former letters or figures written or effaced that demonstrates forgery. Much time may be profitably spent in merely scanning each letter of a doc.u.ment, and the writing by lines, paragraphs, and pages before a closer scrutiny.

Gradually, if the writing be genuine, its character will begin to reveal itself, and unconsciously a hypothesis as to the physical causes of the irregularities or characteristics will be formed.

When an entire doc.u.ment or page is forged, the ornamentation, flourishes, or the capitals at its head will often be seen to be out of keeping, either with its nature or with the supposed author's habits in similar cases. In a writing all must agree, place, day, year, handwriting, superscription or heading, signature, and material carrying the writing, especially paper, both as to const.i.tution and color and ink.

See ill.u.s.trations of various kinds of handwriting at end of this book.

CHAPTER XV

GUIDED HANDWRITING AND METHOD USED

The Most Frequent and Dangerous Method of Forgery--How to Detect a Guided Signature--What Guided Handwriting Is and How It Is Done--Character of Such Writing--Writing by a Guided Hand--Difficulty in Writing--Force Exercised by Joint Hands--A Hand More or Less Pa.s.sive--Work of the Controlling Hand--How Guided Writing Appears--Two Writers Acting in Opposition--Distorted Writing--How a Legitimate Guided Hand is Directed and Supported--Pen Motion Necessary to Produce Same--Influence in Guiding a Stronger Hand--Avoiding an Unnatural and Cramped Position--Effect of the Brain on Guided Hand--Separating Characteristics From Guided Joint Signature--Detecting Writing by a System of Measurement.

Guided handwriting is one of the most frequent means of forgery and oftentimes the most difficult to detect. It has been established that with care the elements of each handwriting can be detected and proven in a guided signature. The leading handwriting experts of the world are unanimous in declaring that it is possible for holding another's hand in making a guided signature to infuse the character of the guider's hand into the writing.

Guided handwriting is the writing produced by two hands conjointly and is usually erratic, and at first sight, hard to connect with the handwriting of any one person.

The character and quality of writing in case of a controlled or a.s.sisted hand must depend largely upon the relative force, exercised by the joint hands. The difficulty in writing arises from the antagonizing motion of one hand upon the other, which is likely to produce an unintelligible scrawl, having little or none of the habitual characteristics of either hand.

Where one hand is more or less pa.s.sive, the controlling hand doing the writing, its characteristics may be more or less manifest in the writing. But obviously the controlling hand must be seriously obstructed in its motions by even a pa.s.sive hand; and since the controlling hand can have no proper or customary rest, the motion must be from the shoulder and with the whole arm. The writing will therefore be upon an enlarged scale, loose, sprawling, and can have little, if any, characteristic resemblance to the natural and habitual style of the controlling writer, and of course none of the person's whose hand is pa.s.sive.

In appearance it changes abruptly from very high or very wide to very low or narrow letters. This is to be explained by the non-agreement in phase of the impulses due to each of the two writers. If both are endeavoring at the same moment to write a given stroke the length of that stroke will be measured by the sum of the impulses given by the two writers. If they act in opposition to one another, one seeking to make a down stroke while the other is trying to make an up stroke, the result will be a line equal to the difference between the stronger and the weaker force.

As these coincidences and oppositions occur at irregular but not infrequent intervals, like the interference and amplification phases of light and sound waves, the result traced on the paper might be expected in advance to be--and in fact is--a distorted writing where maxima and minima of effect are connected together by longer or shorter lines of ordinary writing.

The only state of things which can justify the guiding of a hand executing a legal instrument is the feebleness or illness of its owner.

When such a.s.sistance is required it is usually given by pa.s.sing the arm around the body of the invalid and supporting the writing hand while the necessary characters are being made.

Both partic.i.p.ants in this action are looking at the writing, and both are thinking of the next letter which must be written, and of the motion of the pen necessary to produce it. Unless the executing hand were absolutely lifeless or entirely devoid of power, it would be impossible for it not to influence the guiding and presumably stronger hand; for the least force exerted cannot fail to deflect a hand, however strong, in an unnatural and cramped position. Nor can the hand of the guider fail to add its contribution to the joint effort, however much the brain which controls it may strive to render the hand entirely pa.s.sive. Both minds are busy with the same act, and insensibly both hands will write the same letter with the results just described.

Can the characteristics of each hand be separated from those of the other and the relative amount of the two contributions to the joint signature be stated?

This is a question which is naturally asked during the trial of a case involving the consideration of a guided hand. From the comparatively small number of experiments made in this direction it would be too hazardous to answer it in the affirmative, but it may be said that some of the characteristics of each hand can usually be made apparent by the system of measurement, and the indications seem to point to the probability of being able to increase the number of characteristics elicited in proportion to the number of observations made. If the significance of every part of every stroke could be properly interpreted, it follows that a complete separation of characteristics would be effected, but this would require an indefinitely large number of observations to be made and a quite unattainable skill in explaining them.

See specimens of guided signatures in Appendix.