Part 5 (2/2)
CHAPTER VIII
HOW TO DETECT FORGED HANDWRITING
Frequency of Litigation Arising Over Disputed Handwriting--Forged and Fict.i.tious Claims Against the Estates of Deceased People--Forgery Certain to Be Detected When Subjected to Skilled Expert Examination--A Forger's Tracks Cannot Be Successfully Covered--With Modern Devices Fraudulent, Forged and Simulated Writing Can Be Determined beyond the Possibility of a Mistake--Bank Officials and Disputed Handwriting--How to Test and Determine Genuine and Forged Signatures--Useful Information About Signature Writing--Guard Against An Illegible Signature--Avoid Gyrations, Whirls and Flourishes--Write Plain, Distinct and Legible--The Signature to Adopt--The People Forgers Pa.s.s By--How to Imitate Successfully--How an Expert Detects Forged Handwriting--Examples of Signatures Forgers Desire to Imitate--Examining and Determining a Forgery--Comparisons of Disputed Handwriting--Microscopic Examinations a Great Help in Detecting Forged Handwriting--Comparison of Forged Handwriting.
Few persons outside of the banking and legal fraternity are aware of the frequency with which litigations arise from one or another of the many phases of disputed handwriting; doubtless most frequently from that of signatures to the various forms of commercial obligations or other instruments conveying t.i.tle to property, such as notes, checks, drafts, deeds, wills, etc. To a less extent the disputed portions involve alterations of books of account and other writings, by erasure, addition, interlineation, etc., while sometimes the trouble comes in the form of disguised or simulated writings. A disproportionately large number of these cases arise from forged and fict.i.tious claims against the estates of deceased people. This results, first, from the fact that such claims are more easily established, as there is usually no one by whom they can be directly contradicted; and, secondly, for the reason that administrators are less liable to exercise the highest degree of caution than are persons who pay out their own money.
In all instances where a forgery extends to the manufacturing of any considerable piece of writing, it is certain of being detected and demonstrated when subjected to a skilled expert examination; but where forgery is confined to a single signature, and that perhaps of such a character as to be easily simulated, detection is ofttimes difficult, and expert demonstrations less certain or convincing. Yet instances are rare in which the forger of even a signature does not leave some unconscious traces that will betray him to the ordinary expert, while in most instances forgery will be at once so apparent to an expert as to admit of a demonstration more trustworthy and convincing to court and jury than is the testimony of witnesses to alleged facts, who may be deceived, or even lie. The unconscious tracks of the forger, however, cannot be bribed or made to lie, and they often speak in a language so unmistakable as to utterly defy controversion.
Note ill.u.s.trations of forged handwriting in Appendix at end of this book.
With the present-day knowledge of writing in its various phases, the ident.i.ty of forged, fraudulent or simulated writing can be determined beyond the possibility of a mistake. Every year sees an increase in the number of important civil and criminal cases that turn on questions of disputed handwriting.
There is not a day in the year but what bank officials are at sea over a disputed signature and a knowledge of how to test and determine genuine and forged signatures will prove of inestimable value to the banking and business world.
Forgery is easy. Detection is difficult. As the rewards for the successful forgers are great, thousands upon thousands of forged checks, notes, drafts, wills, deeds, receipts and all kinds of commercial papers are produced in the United States every year. Many are litigated, but many more are never discovered.
Practical and useful information about signature writing and how to safeguard one's signature against forgery is something that will be welcomed by those who are constantly attaching their names to valuable papers.
Every man should guard against an illegible signature--for example, a series of meaningless pen tracks with outlandish flourishes, such as are a.s.sumed by many people with the feeling that because no one can read them, they cannot be successfully imitated. Experience has demonstrated that the easiest signatures to successfully forge are those that are illegible, either from design or accident. The banker or business man who sends his pen through a series of gyrations, whirls, flourishes and twists and calls it a signature is making it easy for a forger to reproduce his signature, for it is a jumble of letters and ink absolutely illegible and easy of simulation. Every man should learn to write plain, distinct and legible.
The only signature to adopt is one that is perfectly legible, clear and written rapidly with the forearm or muscular movement. One of the best preventatives of forgery is to write the initials of the name--that is, write them in combination--without lifting the pen. It will help if the small letters are all connected with each other and with the capitals. Select a style of capital letters and always use them; study out a plain combination of them; practice writing until it can be written easily and rapidly and stick to it. Don't confuse your banker by changing the form of a letter or adding flourishes.
Countless repet.i.tions will give a facility in writing it that will lend a grace and charm and will stamp it with your peculiar characteristics in such a way that the forger will pa.s.s you by when looking for an ”easy mark.” Plain signatures of the character noted above are not the ones usually selected by forgers for simulation.
Forgers are always hunting for the illegible as in it they can best hide their ident.i.ty.
It is said to be an utter impossibility for one person to imitate successfully a page of writing of another. The person attempting the forgery should be able to accomplish the following: First, he must know all the characteristics of his own hand; second, he must be able to kill all the characteristics of his own hand; third, he must know all of the characteristics in the hand he is imitating; fourth, he must be able to a.s.sume characteristics of the other's hand at will.
These four points are insuperable obstacles, and the forger does not live who has surmounted or can surmount them.
To understand the principles on which an expert in handwriting bases his work, consider for a moment how a person's style of writing is developed. He begins by copying the forms set for him by a teacher. He approximates more or less closely to these forms. His handwriting is set, formal, and without character. As soon as he leaves off following the copy book, however, his writing begins to take on individual characteristics. These are for the most part unconscious. He thinks of what he is writing, not how. In time these peculiarities, which creep gradually into a man's writing, become fixed habits. By the time he is, say, twenty-five years old, his writing is settled. After that it may vary, may grow better or worse, but is certain to retain those distinguis.h.i.+ng marks which, in the man himself, we call personality.
This personality remains. He cannot disguise it, except in a superficial way, any more than he can change his own character.
It follows that no two persons write exactly the same hands. It is easy to ill.u.s.trate this. Suppose, for example, that among 10,000 persons there is one hunchback, one minus his right leg, one with an eye missing, one bereft of a left arm, one with a broken nose. To find a person with two of these would require, probably, 100,000 people; three of them, 1,000,000; four of them, 100,000,000. One possessing all of them might not be found in the entire 14,000,000,000 people on earth. Precisely the same with different handwritings--the peculiar and distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics of one would no more be present in others than would the personal counterparts of the authors be found in other individuals.
It is more surprising, at first thought, to be told that no person ever signs his name even twice alike. Of course, theoretically, it cannot be said that it is impossible for a person to write his name twice in exactly the same manner. A person casting dice might throw double aces a hundred times consecutively. But who would not act on the practical certainty that the dice were loaded long before the hundredth throw was reached in such a case? The same reasoning applies to the matter of handwriting with added force, because the chance of two signatures being exactly alike is incomparably less than the chance of the supposed throws of the dice.
Probably many persons will not believe that it is impossible for them to write their own name twice alike. For them it will be an interesting experiment to repeat their signatures, say, a hundred times, writing them on various occasions and under different circ.u.mstances, and then to compare the result. It is safe to say that they will hardly find two of these which do not present some differences, even to their eyes, and under the examination of a trained observer aided by the microscope, these divergencies stand out tenfold more plainly.
Many cases of forgery hinge on this point, the forger having copied another person's signature by tracing one in his possession, but such attempts are always more easy to detect than those in which the forger carefully imitates another's hand. The latter is the usual procedure.
The forger secures examples of the signature or writing which he desires to imitate. Then he practices on it, trying to reproduce all its striking peculiarities. In this way he sometimes arrives at a resemblance so close as to deceive even his victim. Still there is always present some internal evidence to prove that the writing is not the work of the person to whom it is attributed. Likewise it will reveal the ident.i.ty of the person who actully wrote it, if specimens of his natural hand are to be had for comparison.
It is impossible for a man to carry in his mind and to reproduce on paper all the peculiar characteristics of another man's writing and at the same time to conceal all his own. At some point there is certain to come a slip when the habit of years a.s.serts itself and gives the testimony which may fix the whole production on the forger beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The little things are the ones that count most in making examination and determining a forgery for the reason that they are no less characteristic than the more prominent peculiarities and are more likely to be overlooked by the person who tries to disguise his hand.
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