The Detection of Forgery Part 6

Now it is safe to a.s.sume that these worm holes, being the effect of age, did not exist at the time the letter--if genuine--was written; as the worm did its work long afterwards, it must be regarded as a fortunate circ.u.mstance that in perforating the paper it refrained from destroying the writing, carefully selecting the wider s.p.a.ces that the poet had, with commendable foresight, left for the insect's depredations.

The letters of Thackeray are in two styles of handwriting, the earlier sloping slightly, the latter vertical, round, neat and print-like, the capital _I_ being invariably a simple vertical stroke. His is the most neat and uniformly readable hand of all the great literary characters.

It is somewhat unfortunate that he was not anything like so uniform in his choice of paper. Letters are in existence on an extraordinary variety of material, from a quarto sheet to a sc.r.a.p torn from half a sheet of note paper. On many of these letters is neither address nor date, but when once the characteristics of the charming handscript have been mastered, they are never forgotten, and are recognisable amid the closest imitations.

There are extant a number of forged Thackeray's. Their distinguishing features are that they are invariably very short, as if the forger feared to provide sufficient matter to supply material for comparison; most are on single half sheets of note paper, many on quarto sheets of varying texture and quality, and the characteristic vertical _I_, Thackeray's trade mark, always occurs. It is shaky and often out of the perpendicular, as the genuine rarely is. In the forgeries we have seen and suspect to be the work of A. H. Smith, a very significant sign is a sudden thickening of the downstrokes of tailed letters like _y_, _f_, _g_, producing a tiny diamond-shaped excrescence in the middle of the letter. The gla.s.s reveals that ragged-edged stroke which is inseparable from the writing of the nervous copyist.

It is generally safe to be cautious about very short letters. The forger well knows how difficult is the task of maintaining an a.s.sumed character. Just as the mimic may succeed in reproducing the tone and manner of a person with sufficient closeness to deceive even the most intimate acquaintances of the subject, yet fail to carry the deception beyond a few words or phrases, so the literary forger invariably breaks down when he attempts to simulate handwriting over many sentences. So conscious is he of this great difficulty that he often avoids it by boldly copying some genuine letter. We have had offered to us "guaranteed" Thackeray letters which we immediately recognised as such.

In one particularly glaring case the forger had copied the original letter very fairly so far as the penmanship was concerned, but while the original was written on a half sheet of note paper, the forgery was on a different size paper, and the writing across the length of the paper instead of the breadth. This naturally disarranged the s.p.a.cing between the words, which in all Thackeray's writings is a p.r.o.nouncedly regular feature, and this variation was in itself sufficient to excite suspicion.

The popularity of d.i.c.kens among collectors grows steadily. Despite the fact that he was an industrious correspondent, and that a very large number of his letters appear from time to time in the market, the demand is ever in excess of the supply. As a consequence he has suffered perhaps more than any of the literary immortals at the hands of the forger. Yet it is safe to say that there should be no writer so safe from fraudulent imitation, for there is a peculiar distinctiveness about his caligraphic productions that once seen and noted should never be forgotten. Specimens are easily available. The catalogues of dealers are constantly presenting them, and most public libraries possess examples, either in the original holograph or in some form of reproduction.

Probably no writer preserved his style with such little change as d.i.c.kens. His signature in later years varied somewhat from that of his literary youth, but the body of his handscript retained throughout the same characteristics. It was always a free, fluent, graceful hand, legible as that of Thackeray when its leading peculiarities have been mastered, but less formal and studied than his. It was always remarkably free from corrections or interlineations. He wrote with the easy freedom of the stenographer; indeed it is easy to recognise in the delicate gracefully formed letters the effect of years of training in the most difficult and exacting form of handscript.

Perhaps the leading peculiarities in the d.i.c.kens holograph are these:--

The date of the month is never expressed in figures, but always written in full; in fact, abbreviation in any form he never countenanced.

The letter _y_, both as a capital and a small letter is a figure 7 except in the affix "ly," when the two letters become an _f_ or long stroke _s_.

The letter _t_ is crossed by the firm downward bar, which the character readers claim as a sign of great resolution.

Letter _g_ is invariable in form.

Capital _E_ consists of a downstroke with a bar in the centre.

The hook of many final letters has a tendency to turn backwards.

New paragraphs are marked by beginning the line about an inch from the left-hand margin.

A very marked peculiarity noticeable in many letters is that the left-hand margin gradually grows wider as the lines approach the bottom of the page. The narrowing is wondrously regular, a line drawn from the first letter on the first line to the corresponding position on the last will touch nearly every other line. This peculiarity appears to have escaped every forger whose work we have examined.

If the signs relied upon by the readers of character in handwriting are to be accepted, self-esteem was a p.r.o.nounced characteristic of the great novelist. His writing abounds with those subtle symptoms of the prevalence of that weakness.

His signature is perhaps the best known of any with which the British public are familiar. It is remarkably uniform, and remained precisely the same from the time he adopted it after the Pickwick period until his death. That which he used in youth was less striking, but none the less self-conscious.

After the Pickwick period d.i.c.kens adopted the use of blue paper and blue ink. Letters in black ink, if undated, may safely be attributed to the earlier period.

His note paper was in later years of the regulation note size. The address, Gads' Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, was in embossed black old English letter. His paper was hand-made, and of good quality.

The envelopes were blue, of the same quality paper, but without crest, monogram or distinctive mark. d.i.c.kens' vanity expressed itself in the habit of franking envelopes, _i.e._, by writing his name in the left-hand bottom corner, after the fashion in vogue when Peers and M.P.'s enjoyed the privilege of free postage.

His letters of the pre-envelope period--before 1842--were on quarto sheets. These are exceedingly rare.

There is one feature about autographic forgery which may always be relied upon to a.s.sist greatly in the work of detection. As a general rule there is sufficient matter in a literary forgery to supply the necessary material for comparison. It must of necessity be a copy, if not of an existing original, at least of the general style. The process of imitation must be slow and cautious, and the signs remain in shaky, broken lines, and a ruggedness entirely absent from the writing of the real author, which is fluent and free. Even the shakiness of age noticeable in a few distinguished handwritings is different to the shakiness of the forger's uncertainty.

CHAPTER XV.

FORGED SIGNATURES.

The most difficult phase of the art of the handwriting expert consists in the detection of forgery in signatures. It will be obvious to the student who has followed the instructions and ill.u.s.trations already given that this difficulty is brought about by two princ.i.p.al causes: first, by the paucity of material for comparison; secondly, because of the very important fact that a forgery must, by its nature, be a good and close copy of an original. This means that the unconscious tricks and irregularities that often abound in a long letter, written in a more or less disguised hand, are almost entirely absent from a forged signature. It follows, therefore, that the student must have some other clues and rules to guide him, for he cannot rely upon the chance of a slip or accidental trick occurring in a signature that contains at most perhaps a dozen letters.

The first step in the examination of a suspected signature is to master thoroughly the various characteristics of the genuine signature. These must be studied in every possible relation, and from as many specimens as can be obtained. The magnifying gla.s.s must be in constant use and the eye alert to detect the angle at which the pen is habitually held, the cla.s.s of pen used, and the degree of pressure and speed employed. These last-named points can only be discovered as the result of practice and observation, and though at first sight it may appear impossible to form a correct estimate of the pace at which a pen has travelled, the student will, if observant, soon learn to detect the difference between a swiftly formed stroke and one written with slowness and deliberation. By making a number of each kind of stroke and carefully examining them through a gla.s.s, the student will learn in an hour more than can be taught by means of verbal description. The study of the genuine signatures must be continued until every stroke and its peculiarities are as familiar as the features of a well-known face, for until one is thoroughly impregnated with the original it will be useless to proceed with the examination of the suspects.

At first sight the student will probably perceive very little, if any, difference between the original and the suspect. It would be a very clumsy forgery if he could. Gradually the points of dissimilarity will become clear to him, and with each fresh examination they grow plainer, until he is surprised that they did not sooner strike him; they are so obvious that the eye cannot avoid them; they stand out as plainly as the hidden figure, after it has been detected, in the well-known picture puzzles. There are few faculties capable of such rapid and accurate development as that of observation. Thousands of persons go through life unconscious of the existence of certain common things until the occasion arises for noticing them, or accident forces them upon the attention; then they marvel that the thing should have escaped observation. This is a truism, no doubt, but the force of every plat.i.tude does not always present itself to every one. The comparison of handwritings is so essentially a matter of cultivating the powers of observation, that even if turned to no more practical account than that of a hobby its value as a mental exercise is great.

There are two princ.i.p.al methods by which a signature may be forged: first, by carefully copying the original as one would copy a drawing; secondly, by tracing it.

The first process is referred to as copied. The forger will, most probably, have practised the signature before affixing it to the cheque or other doc.u.ment, thereby attaining a certain degree of fluency. But however well executed, close examination with the aid of the magnifying gla.s.s will reveal those signs of hesitancy and irregularity that one may reasonably expect to find in a copy.

There is no part of a person's handwriting so fluent and free as his signature. Even the most illiterate persons show more freedom and continuity of outline in their signature than in the body of their writing. This is explicable on the ground of usage. A writer may feel a degree of momentary uncertainty in forming a word that he does not write frequently, but his signature he is more sure about. He strikes it off without hesitancy, and in the majority of cases appends some meaningless flourish, which may be described as a superfluous stroke or strokes added for the purpose of ornamentation, for adding distinctiveness, or, in some cases, and particularly with business men, with the idea that the flourishes help to secure the signature from forgery. Such writers will probably be surprised to learn that there is no form of signature so easy to forge as that involved and complicated by a maze of superfluous lines and meaningless flourishes. The most difficult signature for the forger is the clear, plain, copybook-modelled autograph. A little thought and examination will make the reason for this clear.

Let a signature be enveloped in a web of curves and flourishes, making it look like a complicated script monogram. The lines are so numerous that the eye cannot take them all in at a glance, and, if copied, any slight irregularity or departure from the original is more likely to pa.s.s undetected amid the confusing network of interlaced lines. If, on the other hand, the signature be simple and free from the bewildering effects of flourishes, the entire autograph lies revealed, a clear and regular outline, and the slightest variation from the accustomed figure stands out naked and plain. Most of the successful forgeries will be found to be on signatures of the complicated order. Their apparent impregnability has tempted the facile penman to essay the task of harmless imitation; his success has surprised and flattered him, and the easy possibilities of forgery opened up. More than one forger has admitted that his initiatory lessons were prompted by an innocent challenge to imitate a particularly complicated "forgery-proof"

signature.

It must be remembered that the eye of the casual observer takes in a word as a whole rather than in detail. This explains why an author can rarely be trusted to correct his own proofs. He knows what the word should be, and in reading his work in print he notices only the general expected effect of a word. It needs the trained eye of the proof-reader to detect the small _c_ that has taken the place of the _e_, the battered _l_ that is masquerading as an _i_. So long as the general outline of the word is not distorted the wrong letters are often pa.s.sed; and it is much the same with a signature with which one is fairly familiar. The trained examiner of handwriting, like the proof-reader, knows what to look for, and discovers irregularities that would escape the notice of the untrained eye.

The first part of a genuine signature that should be examined is the flourish, which includes all fancy strokes appended to it, and any superfluous addition to the body of the letters. A close scrutiny through the gla.s.s will show that the lines forming the tail-flourish are generally clear, firm and sharp in outline, being formed, not only without hesitation, but with a dash and decided sweep that are strongly at variance with the broken, saw-edged, unsteady line of the copy. It will also generally be found to follow an almost fixed rule in the matter of its proportionate conformation: that is, supposing the writer finishes up with a horizontal line under his signature, it will be seen, on averaging a dozen or so of them, that the distance of the line from the feet of the letters is proportionately uniform. If the line be begun with a spur or curved inward hook, that feature will be repeated. The end of the flourish or final stroke, at the point where the pen leaves the paper, should be very carefully examined. One writer finishes with an almost imperceptible dot, as if the pen had been stabbed into the paper; another finishes with a curve, either upward or downward; a third with a hook turned upward, either a curve or an angle; while a fourth continues the line till it becomes finer and sharper to vanishing point.

Some writers are fond of concluding with a more or less bold and expansive underline running horizontally with the signature. A close examination will show a variation in the degrees of thickness of such a line, which should be carefully noted and looked for in other genuine signatures.

In this connection it will be found extremely useful and instructive to study strokes, either horizontal or vertical, with a view to discovering whether they were struck from right to left, top to bottom, or _vice versa_. The gla.s.s will render it easy to detect beginning from end after a few failures, which, by the way, should not be allowed to discourage, for every minute devoted to the study of handwriting is so much gain in experience, and represents so much more learned, which will never be forgotten.

The flourishes that occur on and about the signature proper must be treated as exaggerated loops, and their shoulders, arcs, hooks and toes carefully measured and noted. For this purpose an average genuine signature should be selected and gauged, which is done in this way: Place over it a sheet of transfer paper. With the scale-rule and a fine pencil draw horizontal lines that will touch the tops and bottoms of the bodies of the letters, lines that touch the tops and bottoms of the tailed and topped letters, and vertical lines that follow the shanks of every topped or tailed letter, including the capitals. The gauge, when completed, will represent a framework fitting the signature, and its use is twofold. It helps the eye to detect the variations in the general contour of the signature, and, when placed over another, brings out the points of difference. Due allowance must be made for proportion. It is obvious that the distance of letters will be greater in a signature written larger than another, but the proportionate distances will be preserved. The difference in the size of a letter is not very important, except that it offers more scope for examination. For example, a looped _l_ may be very small or half an inch long; but, if made by the same writer, the proportionate width at top, bottom and middle will be preserved, and compare with the same measurements in the smaller letter.

Signatures of the same writer do not often vary much in size, though they may be thicker or finer according to the character of the pen used; but observation will show that the difference in a handwriting caused by the use of different pens is much more imaginary than real.

The traced signature is produced by placing the paper over the genuine autograph, holding it to the light, generally on a sheet of gla.s.s, and tracing it with a fine point. Such forgeries are often more easily detected than the copied signature, for the reason that signs of the tracing process can generally be found by careful examination. The fine, hard point used to trace the autograph leaves a smooth hollow, which can be seen through the gla.s.s on examining the back of the cheque or doc.u.ment. If the paper be held in a line with the eye in a strong light, the ridge will be more clearly perceived. The difference between a mark made by a hard point and a pen can be tested by experiment. The hard point must of necessity be pressed with a degree of force to make the desired impression on the paper, and the result is a smooth hollow. But if a pen be pressed hard, it produces two parallel lines, and, instead of a hollow, a ridge is formed between the parallels. Of course, it will be so slight as to be hardly perceptible, except through a strong gla.s.s, but it will be there nevertheless, and knowing what to look for, the expert will generally have no difficulty in satisfying himself whether the forgery has been traced or copied, a very valuable piece of evidence when once settled, for it is within the bounds of probability that the genuine signature from which the tracing was made may be discovered. It is possible, and has often occurred, that the writer of the original may have some recollection of having written to the suspected person, or in many ways a clue may be suggested. There is a well-known case of a forgery being brought home to the perpetrator through the accuracy of the tracing. It is a fact easily proved, that no man can write a word twice, so exactly, that if the two are overlaid they fit. If two such signatures be produced, it is safe to a.s.sume that one has been traced or otherwise mechanically produced. In the case mentioned a signature on a cheque was p.r.o.nounced a forgery by the person supposed to have signed it. In examining specimens of the genuine autograph, the experts came upon one which, when placed upon that on the cheque, proved a perfect replica, down to the most minute detail, showing beyond question that it had been used to trace the forgery from. It was further proved that the original had been in the possession of the supposed forger, and the jury were asked to decide whether it was probable that a man could reproduce his signature in exact facsimile after a lapse of time, and without the original before him. As the chances against such a contingency are many millions to one--a fact the student can verify--the jury decided against the forger.

At the risk of appearing tautological to a tiresome degree it is necessary to accentuate the fact that the comparison of handwriting, and more particularly of signatures, is essentially dependent on cultivating the faculty of observation. This art cannot be taught; it can only be acquired by practice and experience, like swimming or riding. The teacher can at most indicate the method of study and some of the leading principles of conducting an investigation. Most men are not naturally observant, and the habit can be best fostered by having an object; but when once a person has been taught what to look for he almost instinctively notices details that previously never struck him.

This is specially true of the study of handwriting.

The best method of practice that can be adopted by the student is to begin by making a careful study of his own signature and writing. He will be surprised at the number of facts. .h.i.therto unsuspected that will be revealed to him. The value of using his own handwriting as a subject of examination lies in this, that the student can satisfy himself how and why certain strokes are made. This he can only guess at in the writing of others.

The preliminary exercise should consist in studying the effect produced by the different methods of holding the pen. The signature supplies excellent material for this cla.s.s of practice. Begin by holding the pen with the top end pointed well towards the left shoulder, in the absurd and unnatural position taught by the old school of writing masters.

Repeat the signature with the pen held a trifle less acutely angular, and go on till six or eight signatures have been written at a decreasing angle--until the top of the penholder points well to the right, producing what is known as a backhand. The effect of these angles must be carefully noted, and in a short time it will be found possible to arrive at a very accurate opinion as to how the writer of a particular signature habitually holds his pen--an important and valuable piece of knowledge. The practice should be extended to long sentences, and a frequent repet.i.tion of all the letters, capital and small, the magnifying gla.s.s being always used to examine the effect of the various and varying strokes.

In examining a signature for comparing it with a suspected forgery it should be copied very frequently, as the clues and suggestions the experiments will produce are of much greater service than will at first appear, and of more practical value than pages of theory, as the how and why will be revealed for much that would be obscure without this a.s.sistance. As experience grows, it will not be necessary to adopt this copying process so often, for the eye soon becomes alert at detecting slight shades of difference in strokes, and a glance will convey more than could be explained in many pages.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE EXPERT IN THE WITNESS-BOX.

When the expert has been called upon to give an opinion upon the genuineness of writings he embodies his conclusions in a report of which the following may be taken as a fair example:--