monstrations she had witnessed that women may
band together at times with the force of a mob to attack another woman.
This behavior was and is still produced by the same motivation. Men in
power foster it and reward it.

Esther began the attack. "There are many letters on the display you
have shown that are very different from the standards. The T's look
very different."

"What T?"

"Those." Pointing, "those T's have a straight...."

"Certainly some letters will be different, but with my training, I am
able to see similarities you are missing," Alice Stebbins replied,
confident of her own superiority. "If there is a large sample of
writing you may be able to see differences in each letter. The samples
given me were so small that this was not the case, however, I did have
enough material to compare with the unique handwriting characteristics
shown in Dr. Trenchant's standards to make a positive identification."

"How consistently do other document examiners agree with you or agree
with one another?" This from Annette.

"I don't know."

"Do handwriting examiners oppose each other in court?"

"I don't know that. I suppose you could find anyone to do anything.
Assuming that there are two document examiners, it would depend upon
which one makes the most persuasive argument."

"I see," Jane's smile was victorious. "It's not a question of being
correct in your analysis as much as your ability to make a jury think
so."

Henry hurriedly asked loudly, "I understand you are court qualified.
What do you mean by that?"

"Every time I have gone into court, my qualifications have been
accepted by the court. I have never been denied. That is what is
meant."

The chair indicated to Trenchant that she might ask questions of the
document examiner.

First, Trenchant confirmed all of the documents given the examiner and
again made the point that many of these had not been given her before
the hearing as had been sworn to by Lyle and also written in a letter
to her by the chair.

She next established that all of the exemplars that the analyst worked
from were copies. Continuing her questioning of the witness, she
asked, "You must be aware that people in your profession pretty much
insist on seeing original standards?"

Alice dodged adroitly. "I saw the originals of the questioned
documents."

Trenchant pursued. "But only copies of the standards."

Alice allowed, "correct," to escape between clenched teeth