customary form of attack on the handwriting
expert.

Another method of discrediting a witness is to remind him that experts
have differed, the Dreyfus case being usually cited. The answer is
obvious. First it is essential to be assured that those experts were all
competent, for there are degrees of competency in judging handwriting as
in every other subject on which opinion may be called. It is a notorious
fact that in the Dreyfus case the most competent experts testified that
the Henry letters were forgeries, the authorities called on the other
side being in most cases unknown men or amateurs of no standing. A
number of these self-styled experts possessed no other qualification
than presumed familiarity with the handwriting of Dreyfus. It is also
worthy of note that several of the experts on both sides proved most
inefficient witnesses, obscuring their explanations by the employment of
technical phraseology which conveyed little meaning to the lay mind.

Exactitude and regularity in the choice of the words used in describing
the parts of letters should be strictly observed by the student. The
rules given in the chapter on "Terminology" should be mastered and
adhered to. In most cases the terms there applied to letter-analysis
will be found to be self-explanatory.

CHAPTER XVII.

HANDWRITING AND EXPRESSION.

No work dealing with the study of handwriting would be complete unless
it recognised that phase of it which touches on the delineation of
character by an examination of the caligraphy.

That many valuable clues can be picked up by the expert who applies the
principles on which the graphologist works is indisputable, nor is it
necessary to accept all the theories claimed as reliable by those who
practice this interesting branch of the art of writing-analysis.

There is no doubt that many persons have attained a remarkable degree of
proficiency in deducing from the hand-gestures of an unknown person a
very accurate estimate of his or her character, and this fact should
prove that the principles of the art of graphology are based on
scientific grounds, or at least that the rules on which the student
works are regular and not, as some suggest, mere guess-work or
coincidence.

The elder d'Israeli, in his fascinating work, the "Curiosities of
Literature," devotes considerable space to the subject. Among other
things, he says:--

"Assuredly nature would prompt every individual to have a distinct sort
of