varying strokes.

In examining a signature for comparing it with a suspected forgery it
should be copied very frequently, as the clues and suggestions the
experiments will produce are of much greater service than will at first
appear, and of more practical value than pages of theory, as the how and
why will be revealed for much that would be obscure without this
assistance. As experience grows, it will not be necessary to adopt this
copying process so often, for the eye soon becomes alert at detecting
slight shades of difference in strokes, and a glance will convey more
than could be explained in many pages.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE EXPERT IN THE WITNESS-BOX.

When the expert has been called upon to give an opinion upon the
genuineness of writings he embodies his conclusions in a report of which
the following may be taken as a fair example:--

To the Chief of Police.

SIR,

REX _versus_ JONES.

In accordance with your instructions dated ---- I beg leave to
inform you that I have made a careful examination of the document
marked _A_, and attached hereto, and compared it with the documents
marked _B_, _C_, _D_, _E_ and _F_, also attached.

I have arrived at the conclusion that the document _A_ was written
by the same hand as produced _B_, _C_, _D_, _E_ and _F_.

The main reasons which have led me to form this opinion are these:--

First, although the writing in _A_ bears at first sight no
resemblance to that of the other documents, the difference is only
such as experience leads me to expect in a writing which has been
purposely disguised, as I believe this has been.

The writing on the five documents _B_ to _F_ I take to be the normal
hand of the author, and that on _A_ to be the same writer's hand
altered so as to present a different appearance. I will call the
specimens _B_ to _F_ the genuine examples, and _A_ the disguised.

Experience shows that the person who writes an anonymous letter
generally seeks to disguise his hand by departing as much as he
deems possible from his normal writing. The usual hand of the writer
of the genuine document is a free rounded hand sloping upwards
towards the right. The writing of _A_ presents exactly the features
I would expect to find when, as appears to be the case here, the
writer has adopted the familiar trick of sloping his writing in a