Disputed Handwriting | Page 9

light, and then superimposing the paper upon which the forgery

is to be made. The outline of the writing underneath will then appear
sufficiently plain to enable it to be traced with pen or pencil, so as to
produce a very accurate copy upon the superimposed paper. If the
outline is with a pencil, it is afterward marked over with ink.
Again, tracings are made by placing transparent tracing-paper over the
writing to be copied and then tracing the lines over with a pencil. This
tracing is then penciled or blackened upon the obverse side. When it is
placed upon the paper on which the forgery is made, the lines upon the
tracing are retraced with a stylus or other smooth hard point, which
impresses upon the paper underneath a faint outline, which serves as a
guide to the forged imitation.
In forgeries perpetrated by the aid of tracing, the internal evidence is
more or less conclusive according to the skill of the forger. In the
perpetration of a forgery the mind, instead of being occupied in the
usual function of supplying matter to be recorded, devotes its special
attention to superintendence of the hand, directing its movements, so
that the hand no longer glides naturally and automatically over the
paper, but moves slowly with a halting, vacillating motion, as the eye
passes to and from the copy to the pen, moving under the specific
control of the will. Evidence of such a forgery is manifest in the formal,
broken, nervous lines, the uneven flow of the ink, and the often
retouched lines and shades. These evidences are unmistakable when
studied with the aid of a microscope. Also, further evidence is adduced
by a careful comparison of the disputed writing, noting the
pen-pressure or absence of any of the delicate unconscious forms,
relations, shades, etc., characteristic of the standard writing.
Forgeries by tracings usually present a close resemblance in general
form to the genuine, and are therefore most sure to deceive the
unfamiliar or casual observer. It sometimes happens that the original
writing from which the tracings were made is discovered, in which case
the closely duplicated forms will be positive evidence of forgery. The
degree to which one signature of writing duplicates another may be
readily seen by placing one over the other, and holding them to a
window or other strong light, or by close comparative measurements.

Traced forgeries, however, are not, as is usually supposed, necessarily
exact duplicates of their originals, since it is very easy to move the
paper by accident or design while the tracing is being made, or while
making the transfer copy from it; so that while it serves as a guide to
the general features of the original, it will not, when tested, be an exact
duplication. The danger of an exact duplication is quite generally
understood by persons having any knowledge of forgery, and is
therefore avoided. Another difficulty is that the very delicate features of
the original writing are more or less obscured by the opaqueness of two
sheets of paper, and are therefore changed or omitted from the forged
simulation, and their absence is usually supplied, through force of habit,
by equally delicate unconscious characteristics from the writing of the
forger. Again, the forger rarely possesses the requisite skill to exactly
reproduce his tracing. Much of the minutiae of the original writing is
more or less microscopic, and from that reason passes unobserved by
the forger. Outlines of writing to be forged are sometimes simply
drawn with a pencil, and then worked up in ink. Such outlines will not
usually furnish so good an imitation as to form, since they depend
wholly upon the imitative skill of the forger.
Besides the forementioned evidences of forgery by tracing, where
pencil or carbon guide-lines are used which must necessarily be
removed by rubber, there are liable to remain some slight fragments of
the tracing lines, while the mill finish of the paper will be impaired and
its fiber more or less torn out, so as to lie loose upon the surface. Also
the ink will be more or less ground off from the paper, thus giving the
lines a gray and lifeless appearance. And as retouchings are usually
made after the guide-lines have been removed, the ink, wherever they
occur, will have a more black and fresh appearance than elsewhere. All
these phenomena are plainly manifest under the microscope. Where the
tracing is made directly with pen and ink over a transparency, as is
often done, no rubbing is necessary, and of course, the phenomena
from rubbering does not appear.
Where signatures or other writings have been forged by previously
making a study and practice of the writing, to be copied until it has
been to a greater or less degree idealized, the