handwriting and Crimes

Hokitika Guardian, 29 July 1922, Page 4

handwriting and Crimes

(By. Douglas Blackburn). Could you say, on the. spur of the nioineiit ,ho\v you dot an “i” or cross a “.t” 7 Whether the dot is round or a stroke? If a strike, whether it is wedge-shaped, lind. if wedge-shaped, in which direction the thin end points. Is the dot directly over the "i,” to the left or right, and what is its average distance above the body of the “i”:' And what about the “i” stroke!' There are at least forty recognised ways of crossing a “t.” Which one do you employ? The chances are that you have never given the subject a moment’s thought, because the net of dotting and crossing. like every other hand-gesture in wrting. is purely automatic and mechanical, and performed without though!. It is on the knowledge of this fact

the handwriting expert works when seeking the author of a specimen of handwriting that may he an anonymous letter or a forgery.

He examines it for signs of the hand gestures and peculiarities lie lias detected n the acknowledged writing of

tin- suspected person. He knows that the normal hand is the result of habits peculiar to the individual to the Individual, like the tone of liis voice and bis tricks of speech. Rotli are dictated bv conditions over which a man lias much less control than lie imagines, and the more fluent the writer the more mechanical his pen action, ft is only the child and the illiterate who watch every pen stroke.

No two haiulseripts are exactly alike. The resemblance at lirst sight may he striking, even bewildering, hilt when one knows what to look for, and how to compare writings, the characteristics that differentiate one writing from the other stand out plainly, no matter what the disguise.

The fine pen, the heavy pen, and even the heavy “hack-hand” —the frequent resort of the anonymous letter writer—repent all the leading features of the original hand. The writer who uses a wedge dot will always make it; habitually looped “b” “!i” and “f” and “1” will never or rarely, become straight liars, the vshapeil “u” and “o” will never he prettily rounded, and the final letters that normally end with an abrupt stump, ns if ink were too valuable to waste, will never develop into long curled tails. In fine, the form of the letter produced h.v years ol unnoticed habit will recur in a long writing in spite of care. But these are obvious features which ally intelligent anonymous letter writer, if there lie such, might notice and guard against with some success, were it not thnit the. expert looks for other evidences, of which the writer is probably unaware.

For example l , the angle of slope of a writing is strangelv uniform; so are the proportionate height of letters anil the distance between letters, words, niu) lines. A pencil line drawn beneath a long word will often show it. to ho how-shaped, anil repeated in the same word, or iti words of similar formation.

Then there is the deadly clue tlia.t lurks in the ragged stroke, that has howled out many « forger. No part ol n person’s handwriting is more fluent than his signature. Habit has taught him .to dash it off with a firm, clear outline, particularly the final flourish that many people append. The enlarged photograph, which has added an awful terror to the art of forgery, reveals the si&iis of hesitancy in a slowly copied signature, whose strokes hear the same relation fn the original as the woolly, wobbly lines of the young pupil present to the clear, decided outlines of the drawing muster.