Disputed Handwriting | Page 6

almost exclusively of straight up-and-down
strokes, looking at a short distance like a row of needles with very light
hair-lines to indicate the separate letters; signatures begun at the
beginning or the end and written without removing the pen from the
paper; signatures which are entirely illegible and whose component
parts convey only the mutilated rudiments of letters, are not uncommon.
All such signatures strike the eye and arrest the attention, and thus
accomplish the object of their authors. The French signature frequently
runs upward from left to right, ending with a strong down nourish in
the opposite direction. All these, even the most illegible examples, give
evidence of experience in handling or mishandling the pen. The
signature most difficult to read is frequently the production of the hand
which writes most frequently, and it is very much harder to decipher
than the worst specimens of an untrained hand. The characteristics of
the latter are usually an evident painstaking desire to imitate faulty
ideals of the letters one after the other, without any attempt to attain a
particular effect by the signature as a whole. In very extreme cases, the
separate letters of the words constituting the signature are not even
joined together.

A simulation of such a signature by an expert penman will usually
leave enough traces of his ability in handling the pen to pierce his
disguise. Even a short, straight stroke, into which he is likely to relapse
against his will, gives evidence against the pretended difficulties of the
act which he intends to convey. It is nearly as difficult for a master of
the pen to imitate an untrained hand as for the untrained hand to write
like an expert penman. The difference between an untrained signature
and the trembling tracing of his signature by an experienced writer who
is ill or feeble, is that in the former may be seen abundant instances of
ill-directed strength, and in the latter equally abundant instances of
well-conceived design, with a failure of the power to execute it.
Observations such as the preceding are frequently of great value in
aiding the expert to understand the phenomena which he meets, and
they belong to a class which does not require the application of
standards of measure, but only experience and memory of other similar
instances of which the history was known, and a sound judgment to
discern the significance of what is seen.
No general rules other than those referred to above can be given to
guide the student of handwriting in such cases, but the differences will
become sufficiently apparent with sufficient practice.
A well-known banker, writing to the author of this work, makes some
points on the subject which are rather disturbing. His fundamental
proposition is that the judgment of experts is of no value when based as
it ordinarily is, only upon an inspection of an alleged fraudulent
signature, either with the naked eye or with the eye aided by
magnifying glasses, and upon a comparison of its appearance with that
of a writing or signature, admitted or known to the expert, to be
genuine, of the same party.
He alleges, in fact, that writing and signatures can be so perfectly
imitated that ocular inspection cannot determine which is true and
which is false, and that the persons whose signatures are in controversy
are quite as unable as anybody to decide that question. Nevertheless,
the law permits experts to give their opinions to juries, who often have
nothing except those opinions to control their decisions, and who

naturally give them in favor of the side which is supported by the
greatest number of experts, or by experts of the highest repute.
Decisions upon such testimony this banker regards as no better than, if
quite as good as, the result of drawing lots. Of course he cannot mean
to include under these observations, that class of forgeries which are so
bunglingly executed as to be readily detected by the eye, even of
persons not specially expert. He can only mean to say that imitations
are possible and even common, which are so exact that their counterfeit
character is not determinable by inspection, even when aided by
glasses.
At first blush this contention of the banker is extremely a most
unsatisfactory view of the case, and the more correct it looks likely to
be, the more unsatisfactory. Courts may go beyond inspection and
apply chemical on the tests, but such tests cannot be resorted to in the
innumerable cases of checks and orders for money and property which
are passed upon every day in the business world, and either accepted as
genuine or rejected as counterfeit. But the real truth is, in fully
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that no check or order is paid
merely upon confidence in the