he character of the pen used and the hand-gestures which
have, by constant usage, become as much part of the writer's style as
his walk and the tone of his voice.

It follows, therefore, that the work of the handwriting experts consists
in learning how to detect and recognize those unconscious or mechanical
signs, characteristics or hand-gestures that are a feature in the
handwriting of every person, no matter how closely any two hands may
approximate in general appearance. However similar two hands may seem to
the casual and untrained observer, very distinct and unmistakable
differences become apparent when the student has been taught what to
look for. There is no more certain thing than the fact that there has
not yet been discovered two handwritings by separate persons so closely
allied that a difference cannot be detected by the trained observer.
Every schoolmaster knows that in a class of pupils taught writing from
the same model, and kept strictly to it, no two hands are alike,
although in the early and rudimentary stage, before the hand has
attained freedom and approached a settled character, the differences are
less marked. So soon as the child has been freed from the restraint of
the set copy and the criticism of the teacher, he begins to manifest
distinct characteristics, which become more marked and fixed with
practice and usage.

There is no writing so uniform as the regulation hand used, and wisely
insisted upon, in the Civil Service, and familiar to the general public
in telegrams and official letters. Yet it is safe to say that there is
not a telegraph or post office clerk in England who would not be able to
pick out the writing of any colleague with which he was at all
acquainted.

_Duplicates non-existent._--But the best and most decisive answer to the
objection that writings may be exactly similar lies in the notorious
fact that during half a century experts have failed to discover two
complete writings by different hands, so much alike that a difference
could not be detected. Had such existed, they would long ere this have
been produced for the confuting of the expert in the witness-box;
particularly when we bear in mind that the liberty, and even the life of
a person, have depended upon the identification of handwriting. That
there are many cases of extraordinary similarity between different
handwritings is a fact; if there were not, there would be very little
occasion for the services of the expe