tate any inferences
deduced from the facts. He must also testify himself. Evidence of what
an expert has said with reference to a writing is inadmissible for the
purpose of bringing that opinion before the court.

An expert may be tested with other papers in the case, but not with
irrelevant papers, and the whole of the test paper must be shown him.
He is entitled to see it all.

Letter-press copies and duplicates made by writing machines are not
originals and therefore cannot be used as a standard of comparison.

An expert cannot give an opinion as to the genuineness of a signature
based upon a comparison thereof with signatures not before the court.

The standard of comparison used by the expert must be produced in
court. Photographic copies are admissible when accompanied by the
originals. When original writings are in evidence and the genuineness
thereof disputed, magnified photographic copies of the writing and of
admitted genuine writings are admissible in evidence, for comparison
by jury or expert when accompanied by competent preliminary proof that
the copies are accurate in all respects except as to size and color.

The services of the expert are required in a wide range of civil and
criminal cases. Where handwriting is questioned on notes, checks,
drafts, receipts, wills, deeds, mortgages, bonds, anonymous letters,
money orders, registered letter receipts, letters, pension papers, and
in smuggling, and in short, on any kind of document where it becomes
necessary to establish the identity of the writer, the expert is
called in. Life, liberty, honor, and property are frequently balanced
on a pen point--a few marks of the pen being the determining feature
of many a case.

The handwriting of the schoolboy and schoolgirl, though crude, is
conventional and idealized. It has but few characteristics so long as
the school model or copy-book hand is the goal. The pupil gives
constant attention to the handwriting as well as to the thought. A
number of students of about the same grade, under the same teacher,
will write much alike. Fifteen or twenty of these students could each
write a line on a page and it might baffle a layman, and perhaps
puzzle an expert, to tell whether or not more than one person wrote
the page. This constant striving after one ideal, and putting thought
on the handwriting, had drawn them all toward that ideal and away from
individuality.

The employment of professional handwriting experts a