is mostly absent. The evidence of free-hand forgery and tracing is
chiefly in the greater liability of the forger to inject into the
writing his own unconscious habit and to fail to reproduce with
sufficient accuracy that of the original writing, so that when
subjected to rigid analysis and microscopic inspection, the
spuriousness is made manifest and demonstrable. Specific attention
should be given to any hesitancy in form or movement in tracing which
is manifest in angularity or change of direction of lines, changed
relations and proportions of letters, slant of the writing, its
mechanical arrangement, disconnected lines, retouched shades, etc.

Photographs, greatly enlarged, of both the signatures in question and
the exemplars placed side by side for comparison will greatly aid in
making plain any evidence of forgery.

If practicable, use for comparison as standards both the imitated
writing and that of the imitator's traced writing. These methods,
employed by skilled and experienced examiners, will rarely fail of
establishing the true relationship between any two disputed
handwritings and more especially where the question of a forged or
traced signature is under discussion.

Under the microscope tracing by the pen-nibs are usually easily
visible, and they differ with every variety of pen employed. A stiff,
fine-pointed pen makes two comparatively deep lines a short distance
apart, which appear blacker in the writing than the space between
them, because they fill with ink, which afterwards dries and produces
a thicker layer of black sediment than those elsewhere. The variations
of pressure upon the pen can be easily noticed by the alternate
widening and narrowing of the band between these two furrows. The
tracing appears knotty and uneven when made by an untrained hand,
while it appears uniformly thin, and generally tremulous or in zigzags
when made by a weak but trained hand.

Where the tracing is made directly with pen and ink over a
transparency, as is often done, no rubbing is necessary, and of course
the phenomena from rubbering do not appear.

Where signatures or other writings have been forged by previously
making a study and practice of the writing to be copied until it has
been to a greater or less degree idealized, the hand must be trained
to its imitation so that it can be written with a more or less
approximation as to form and with natural freedom.

Forgeries thus made by skilful imitators are