Part 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER XVI

TALES TOLD BY HANDWRITING

Telling the Nationality, s.e.x and Age of Anyone Who Executes Handwriting--Americans and Their Style of Writing--How English, German, and French Write--Gobert the French Expert and How He Saved Dreyfus--Miser Paine and His Millions Saved by an Expert--Writing with Invisible Ink--Professor Braylant's Secret Writing Without Ink--Professor Gross Discovers a Simple Secret Writing Method With a Piece of Pointed Hardwood--A System Extensively Used--Studying the Handwriting of Authors--How to Determine a Person's Character and Disposition by Handwriting.

It is possible for a trained expert in handwriting to tell with a fair degree of accuracy the nationality, s.e.x, and age of any one who executes writing of any kind. A study of the handwriting of the different nations makes it comparatively easy to recognize in any questioned specimen the nationality of the writer. The aggregate characteristics of a nation are reflected in the style of handwriting adopted as a national standard. The style most in use in the United States is the semi-angular, forward-slant hand, although the vertical round-hand is now being largely taught in the public schools and will affect the appearance of the writing of the next generation quite appreciably.

Frequently educational and newspaper critics compare unfavorably American writing with that of other nations. The writer has investigated the subject by collecting from many countries copy-books and specimens of writing from leading teachers of writing, students in various grades of schools, clerks and business men.

America is so far in advance of any other country in artistic and business penmans.h.i.+p that there is really no second. Americans as a whole write at a much higher rate of speed and with a freer movement than any other nations, and, consequently, many critics stop when they have criticized form alone, not making allowance for quant.i.ty.

Nervous, rapid writers (and such the Americans are) produce writing more or less illegible, but it is not the fault of the standard so much as the speed with which the writing is done.

The writing of England is either angular (for rapid business style), or the civil-service round-hand--too slow for the every-day rush of business. England's colonies, influenced by her copy-books and teachers, write about as England does. Canada is an exception, as her proximity to the United States causes her to mix the English and American styles, with the American gaining ground.

The German and French write two radically different styles. Hence the ident.i.ty of the nation producing the writer as well as the ident.i.ty of the writer himself usually can be established. Before the writer is known this frequently is of great benefit to the cause of justice as it narrows down the search.

A case such as the Dreyfus affair has a tendency to confuse the public mind and leads to wrong conclusions. In initiating the prosecution of Dreyfus the French government submitted the doc.u.ments to expert Gobert, of the Bank of France, who is considered the leader in this line in France. Gobert reported that Dreyfus did not write the incriminating doc.u.ments. The prosecutors then placed the papers in the hands of Bertillon, the inventor of the anthropometric system of measurements (used princ.i.p.ally on criminals) which bears his name. It mattered not that Bertillon had never appeared in a handwriting case before, or that his skill in this line was unknown. He was a man of science, of great renown in other lines, and the government relied on these facts to bolster up its claim that Dreyfus wrote the incriminating papers Bertillon reported in favor of the government's contention, and it was an easy matter to get some alleged experts--weak as to will and ability--and one or two honest but misguided men to agree with him. Some of these afterward changed their opinions when better standards of writing were given to them.

Dreyfus' friends sent engraved reproductions of standards and disputed doc.u.ments to the best-known experts all over the world, and without exception these reported that Dreyfus was not the writer of the disputed papers. On the side of the French government were a few so-called ”experts,” headed and dominated by a man with no experience whatever. The experts of skill and experience in France and the world over were practically unanimous in favor of Dreyfus. A critical examination of the doc.u.ments in question produced an absolute conviction that they could not possibly have been written by Dreyfus.

Unless the individual is fitted by nature and inborn liking for investigations of this character, no amount of education and experience will fit him. But, given natural equipment and inclination, it is necessary first of all that the expert have a good general education. He should have a sufficient command of language to make others see what he sees. He should have a good eye for form and color, and a well-trained hand to enable him to describe graphically as well as orally what his trained eye has detected. A few strokes on a blackboard or large sheet of paper will often make a clouded point appear much plainer to court, jury and lawyers than hours of oral description. The ability to handle the crayon and to simulate well the writings under discussion is a great aid.

A very interesting case was involved in the will of Miser Paine in New York in 1889. Here a deliberate attempt to get away with something like $1,500,000 was made, which was frustrated by a handwriting expert. When quite a young man, James H. Paine was a clerk in a Boston business house. He absconded with a lot of money and went to New York, where all trace of him was lost. He speculated with the stolen money, and everything he touched turned to gold. He soon became a millionaire. Then he became a miser. He went around the streets in rags, lodged in a garret with a French family on the West Side, who took him out of pure charity, and lived on the leavings which restaurant-keepers gave him. There was only one thing that he would spend money on; that was music. He was pa.s.sionately fond of music, and for years was a familiar figure in the lobby of the Academy of Music during the opera season. He would go there early in the evening, and beg people to pay his way in. If he didn't find a philanthropist he would buy a ticket himself, but he never gave up hope until he knew that the curtain had risen.

Finally Paine was run over by a cab in New York. He was taken to a hospital, but made such a fuss about staying there that he was finally removed to his garret home. He died there in a few days. Then a man came forward with a power of attorney which he said Paine gave him in 1885 and which authorized him to take charge of Paine's interest in the estate of his brother, Robert Treat Paine. The closing paragraph empowered him to attend to all of Paine's business and to dispose of his property without consulting anybody, in the event of anything happening to him. Nothing was known then of Paine's possessions. Later the French family with whom Paine lived opened an old hair trunk they found in the garret. In this trunk they found nearly half a million dollars in gold, bank notes, and securities. Chickering, the piano man, came forward then and said that some years before Paine gave him a package wrapped up in an old bandana handkerchief for safe keeping.

He had opened this package and found that it contained $300,000 in bank notes. Other possessions of Paine's were found. Relatives came forward and employing handwriting experts proved that the power of attorney presented was a forgery and the estate went to the relations of Paine. This was a celebrated case in its day and called attention to the value of experts in this line.

Ovid, in his ”Art of Love,” teaches young women to deceive their guardians by writing their love letters with new milk, and to make the writing appear by rubbing coal dust over the paper. Any thick and viscous fluid, such as the glutinous and colorless juices of plants, aided by any colored powder, will answer the purpose equally well. A quill pen should be used.

The most common method is to pen an epistle in ordinary ink, interlined with the invisible words, which doubtless has given rise to the expression, ”reading between the lines,” in order to discover the true meaning of a communication. Letters written with a solution of gold, silver, copper, tin, or mercury dissolved in aqua fortis, or simpler still of iron or lead in vinegar, with water added until the liquor does not stain white paper, will remain invisible for two or three months if kept in the dark; but on exposure for some hours to the open air will gradually acquire color, or will do so instantly on being held before the fire. Each of these solutions gives its own peculiar color to the writing--gold, a deep violet; silver, slate; and lead and copper, brown.

There is a vast number of other solutions that become visible on exposure to heat, or when having a heated iron pa.s.sed over them; the explanation is that the matter is readily burned to a sort of charcoal. Simplest among these are lemon juice or milk; but the one that produces the best result is made by dissolving a scruple of salammoniac in two ounces of water.

Several years ago Professor Braylant of the University of Louvain discovered a method in which no ink at all was required to convey a secret message. He laid several sheets of note paper on each other and wrote on the uppermost with a pencil; then selected one of the under sheets, on which no marks of the writing were visible. On exposing this sheet to the vapor of iodine for a few minutes it turned yellowish and the writing appeared of a violet brown color. On further moistening the paper it turned blue, and the letters showed in violet lines. The explanation is that note paper contains starch, which under pressure becomes ”hydramide,” and turns blue in the iodine fumes. It is best to write on a hard surface, say a pane of gla.s.s. Sulphuric acid gas will make the writing disappear again, and it can be revived a second time.

One of the simplest secret writings, however, to which Professor Gross of Germany calls attention is the following:

Take a sheet of common writing paper, moisten it well with clear water, and lay it on a hard, smooth surface, such as gla.s.s, tin, stone, etc. After removing carefully all air bubbles from the sheet, place upon it another dry sheet of equal size and write upon it your communication with a sharp-pointed pencil or a simple piece of pointed hardwood. Then destroy the dry paper upon which the writing has been done, and allow the wet paper to dry by exposing it to the air (but not to the heat of fire or the flame of a lamp). When dry, not a trace of the writing will be visible. But on moistening the sheet again with clear water and holding it against the light, the writing can be read in a clear transparency. It disappears again after drying in the air, and may be reproduced by moistening a great number of times. Should the sheets be too much heated, however, the writing will disappear, never to reappear again. This system is used extensively in Germany.

An interesting study is the handwriting of authors, as it indicates to a greater or less degree their personal temperaments.

Longfellow wrote a bold, open back-hand, which was the delight of printers, says the Scientific American. Joaquin Miller wrote such a bad hand that he often becomes puzzled over his own work, and the printer sings the praises of the inventor of the typewriter.

Charlotte Bronte's writing seemed to have been traced with a cambric needle, and Thackeray's writing, while marvelously neat and precise, was so small that the best of eyes were needed to read it. Likewise the writing of Captain Marryatt was so microscopic that when he was interrupted in his labors he was obliged to mark the place where he left off by sticking a pin in the paper.

Napoleon's was worse than illegible, and it is said that his letters from Germany to the Empress Josephine were at first thought to be rough maps of the seat of war.