upon the other with the exactness of the lines in
the signatures.

These radiating lines, too, may be used in the few cases where the
forger is an expert penman depending upon an offhand duplication of a
signature. This penman will have his inevitable natural slant to his
letters. This characteristic slant never is the same in two individuals.
In his free and easy forgery of a name written by another person this
"Jim, the penman" exposes his acquired slant which disputes the original.

This slant of individual writing shows especially in any attempt to
write a forged letter or document. When the pen scope of the original
has been lined out, proving the characteristic common lengths between
the lifting of the pen from the paper, the lines radiating from the
points to individual letters in words or groups of words in authentic
and bogus specimens, these radiations point at once to the fact that
the same person did not write the matter.

These are some of the things upon which the handwriting expert works
upon and brings to bear in proof of reproduced signatures and
handwriting in general. How the more or less inexpert person discovers
questionable showing in these duplications are many. His intuitions
may suggest his doubts. Material evidences may have come to bear upon
him. Likelihood of some one person's having self-interests in the
matter may induce him to make sure.

In the case of a banker or business man, having large interests and
required to affix his signature to many papers of moment, he ordinarily
makes it certain that through adapted whorls and freehand sweeps of the
pen, the signature will be least careless and inviting to the
adventurous forger. In much of his personal correspondence with
strangers, however, this adapted and unusual signature frequently
becomes a source of loss to himself and irritation to his correspondents.
In the case of hundreds of such individuals, the writing to a stranger
in expectation of a reply becomes an absurdity for the reason that
the person addressed is hopelessly barred from reading the name
attached to the letter. A plain signature is always the best.

CHAPTER IV

ERASURES, ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS

What Erasure Means--The English Law--What a Fraudulent Alteration
Means--Altered or Erased Parts Considered--Memoranda of Alterations
Should Always Accompany Paper Changed--How Added Words Should
be Treated--How to Erase Words and Lines Without Creating
Suspicion-