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ancient documents it often becomes a pure question of skill, the character of the handwriting varying with the age, and the discrimination of it being materially assisted by antiquarian researches. (0)

The evidence of persons accustomed to the critical examination of handwriting, as engravers and inspectors of franks, who, without any previous knowledge of a person's handwriting, profess to be able to determine by comparison of the disputed with the genuine writing, whether a signature be genuine or not, and also from the general character and appearance of writing, whether it be written in a natural or feigned hand, appears to have been formerly considered as another exception to the rule; (p) but such evidence is now justly considered to be of so little weight, and attempts to introduce it are so much discountenanced, that in the language of Lord Denman, (q) this chapter may be considered as expunged from the book of evidence. (r)

An attempt has lately been made to introduce a new mode of proof, by satisfying the witness by some information or evidence, that certain papers are in the handwriting of the party, and then desiring him to study those papers, so as to acquire a knowledge of the handwriting, and fix an exemplar in his mind, and afterwards putting into his hand the writing in question and asking his belief respecting *it; or by merely putting certain papers into the witness's hand, without telling him who wrote them, and desiring him to study them, and acquire a knowledge of the hand

(0) Per Coleridge, J. ib.

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(p) Goodtitle v. Revett, 4 T. R. 49. Rex v. Cator, 4 Esp. 117. Rex v. Johnson, 29 St. Tr. 81.

(9) Doe d. Mudd v. Suckermore, ut supra.

(r) Gurney v. Langlands, 5 B. & Ald. 330.

Constable v. Steibel,

1 Hagg. 56. Young v. Brown, ib. 569. Fitzwalter Peerage, 10 C.

& F. 193. Tracy Peerage, ib. 154.

writing, and afterwards showing him the writing in question and asking his belief, whether they are written by the same person, and calling evidence to prove to the jury that the former are the handwriting of the party. (8) The question in the cause was the due execution of a will. On the first day of the trial the defendant called an attesting witness, who swore that the attestation was his. On his cross-examination, two signatures to depositions respecting the same will in an ecclesiastical court, and several other signatures, were shown to him (none of them being in evidence for any other purpose of the cause,) and he stated that he believed them to be his. On the following day the plaintiff tendered a witness to prove the attestation not to be genuine. The witness was a Bank-inspector, who had no knowledge of the handwriting of the supposed attesting witness, except from having previous to the trial, and again between the two days, examined the signatures admitted by the attesting witness, which admission he had heard made in court. Mr. Justice Vaughan rejected the evidence; and upon a motion for a new trial, on the ground of its improper rejection, the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench were equally divided in opinion.(t)

Evidence to handwriting is subject to many sources of fallacy and error, among which may be enumerated tuition by the same preceptor, employment with other persons in the same place of business, as well as designed imitation, all of which are frequently causes of great similarity in writing. Men in certain business and pro

(8) Per Mr. Justice Patteson in Doe dem. Mudd v. Suckermore, 5 A. & E. 703.

(t) See also Griffits v. Ivery, 11 A. & E. 322. 8 M. & W. 123. Young v. Horner, 2 M. & R.

51.

Hughes v. Rogers, 573, and 1 C. & K.

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fessions *sometimes adopt peculiarities of character, though less frequently than formerly; and there are characteristic peculiarities indicative of age, infirmity and sex. (u)

Handwriting is sometimes most successfully imitated. On a trial for forgery of bank-notes, a banker's clerk whose name was on one of the notes swore distinctly that it was his handwriting, while he spoke hesitatingly with respect to his genuine subscription. (v) Lord Eldon mentioned a very remarkable instance of the uncertainty of this kind of evidence. A deed was produced at a trial on which much doubt was thrown as a discreditable transaction. The solicitor was a very respectable man, and was confident in the character of his attesting witnesses. One of them purported to be Lord Eldon himself, and the solicitor, who had referred to his signature to pleadings, had no doubt of its authenticity, yet Lord Eldon declared that he had never attested a deed in his life. (w)

In a case in Doctors' Commons the learned judge repudiated the common objection of painting or touching, as a reason for inferring fraud, saying that there could scarcely be a less certain criterion, and peremptorily declined the use of a glass of high powers, said to have been used by the professional witness, observing, in substance, that glasses of high powers, however fitly applied to the inspection of natural objects, rather tended to distort and misrepresent than to place such objects in their true light; especially when used (their ordinary application in the hands of prejudiced persons) to confirm some theory or preconceived opinion. (x) But it is

(u) See Rex v. Johnson, 29 St. Tr. 81.

(v) Rex v. Carsewell, Burnett's C. L. of Scotl. 502.
(w) Eagleton v. Kingston, 8 Ves. 473.
(x) Robson v. Rocke, 2 Addams, 79.

conceived that this ruling of the learned judge must be ascribed to some peculiarity of jurisdiction or practice connected with *the ecclesiastical courts, as it is

[*113] the daily practice of courts of common law to admit the artificial aid of glasses and lamps. On a trial for murder an optician showed satisfactorily to the jury the name of the prisoner, scratched in rude letters, on the handle of a razor found in a wood near the scene of the crime. (y)

The following extract from a learned judgment of Sir John Nicholl embodies many instructive observations upon this kind of evidence: "This court has often had occasion to observe, that evidence to handwriting is at best, in its own nature, very inconclusive; affirmative, from the exactness with which handwriting may be imitated; and negative, from the dissimilarity which is often discoverable in the handwriting of the same person under different circumstances. Without knowing very precisely the state and condition of the writer at the time, and exercising a very discriminating judgment upon these, persons deposing, especially, to a mere signature not being that of such and such a person, from its dissimilarity-however ascertained or supposed to be to his usual handwriting, are so likely to err, that negative evidence to a mere subscription, or signature, can seldom, if ever, under ordinary circumstances, avail in proof, against the final authenticity of the instrument to which that subscription, or signature, is attached. But such evidence is peculiarly fallacious, where the dissimilarity relied upon is not that of general character, but merely particular letters; for the slightest peculiarities of circumstance or position,-as, for instance, the writer sitting up or reclining, or the

(y) Reg. v. Sawyer, Maidstone spring assizes, 1839, coram Mr. Justice Littledale.

paper being placed upon a harder or softer substance, or on a plane more or less inclined,-nay, the materials, as pen, ink, &c., being different at different times, -are ample sufficient to account *for the same

letters being made variously at the different [*114] times by the same individual. Independent however of anything of this sort, few individuals, it is apprehended, write so uniformly, that dissimilar formations of particular letters are grounds for concluding them not to have been made by the same person." (2)

SECTION 4.

VERIFICATION OF TIME AND DATES.

AMONGST the mechanical circumstances which occasionally lead to the detection of forgery and fraud, a discrepancy between the date of a writing and the anno Domini water-mark in the fabric of the paper is one of the most striking ; (a) but inasmuch as prospective issues of paper, bearing the water-mark of a succeeding year, are occasionally made, this circumstance is not always a safe ground of presumption. (6)

The critical examination of the internal contents of written instruments, perhaps of all others, affords the most satisfactory means of disproving their genuineness and authenticity, especially if they profess to be the production of an anterior age. It is scarcely possible

(*) Robson v. Rocks, 2 Addams, 79; and see Rex v. Hawkins, The Theory of Presumptive Proof, p. 94.

(a) Crisp v. Walpole, 2 Hagg. 521.

(b) A Commissioner of the Insolvent Debtors' Court sitting at Wakefield in 1836, discovered that the paper he was then using, which had been issued by the government stationer, bore the watermark of 1837.

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