Part 31 (1/2)

The number of people who professed to believe in the Claimant long after he was sent to penal servitude was prodigious, although not one of them could have given a reason for his faith, or pointed to a particle of unimpeachable evidence to support his opinion. It had never been anything other than feeling in the dark for what never existed.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

AN EXPERT IN HANDWRITING--”DO YOU KNOW JOE BROWN?”

I always took great interest in the cla.s.s of expert who professed to identify handwriting. Experts of all cla.s.ses give evidence only as to opinion; nevertheless, those who decide upon handwriting believe in their infallibility. Cross-examination can never shake their confidence. Some will pin their faith even to the crossing of a T, ”the perpendicularity, my lord,” of a down-stroke, or the ”obliquity”

of an upstroke.

Mr. Nethercliffe, one of the greatest in his profession, and a thorough believer in all he said, had been often cross-examined by me, and we understood each other very well. I sometimes indulged in a little chaff at his expense; indeed, I generally had a little ”fling”

at him when he was in the box.

It is remarkable that, at the time I speak of, Judges, as a rule, had wonderful confidence in this cla.s.s of expert, and never seemed to think of forming any opinion of their own. A witness swore to certain peculiarities; the Judge looked at them and at once saw them, too often without considering that peculiarities are exactly the things that forgers imitate.

”You find the same peculiarity here, my lord, and the same peculiarity there, my lord; consequently I say it is the same handwriting.”

In days long gone by the eminent expert in this science had a great reputation. As I often met him, I knew _his_ peculiarities, and how annoyed he was if the correctness of his opinion was in the least doubted.

He had a son of whom he was deservedly proud, and he and his son, in cases of importance, were often employed on opposite sides to support or deny the genuineness of a questioned handwriting. On one occasion, in the Queen's Bench, a libel was charged against a defendant which he positively denied ever to have written.

I appeared for the defendant, and Mr. Nethercliffe was called as a witness for the plaintiff.

When I rose to cross-examine I handed to the expert six slips of paper, each of which was written in a different kind of handwriting.

Nethercliffe took out his large pair of spectacles--magnifiers--which he always carried, and began to polish them with a great deal of care, saying,--

”I see, Mr. Hawkins, what you are going to try to do--you want to put me in a hole.”

”I do, Mr. Nethercliffe; and if you are ready for the hole, tell me--were those six pieces of paper written by one hand at about the same time?”

He examined them carefully, and after a considerable time answered: ”No; they were written at different times and by different hands!”

”By different persons, do you say?”

”Yes, certainly!”

”Now, Mr. Nethercliffe, you are in the hole! I wrote them myself this morning at this desk.”

He was a good deal disconcerted, not to say very angry, and I then began to ask him about his son.

”You educated your son to your own profession, I believe, Mr.

Nethercliffe?”

”I did, sir; I hope there was no harm in that, Mr. Hawkins.”

”Not in the least; it is a lucrative profession. Was he a diligent student?”