James D. Peacock, a London barrister, who has given considerable time and study to disputed handwritings, lays great stress upon the ability of determining the genuineness or falsity of a writing by what he calls its “anatomy” or “skeleton.”  He says that some persons in making successive strokes, make the turn from one to another sharply angular, while others make it rounded or looping.  Writings produced in both ways appear the same to the eye, but under a magnifying glass the difference in the mode of executing is shown.  As illustrating that point, he makes the following statement in respect to a case involving the genuineness of the alleged signature of an old man whose handwriting was fine and tremulous: 

“On making a magnified copy of the signature, I found that the tremulous appearance of the letters was due to the fact that they were made up of a series of dashes, standing at varying angles with each other, and further, that these strokes, thus enlarged, were precisely like these constituting the letters in the body of the note, which were acknowledged to have been written by the alleged forger of the note.  Upon the introduction of this testimony the criminal withdrew the plea of not guilty and implored the mercy of the court.”

As one means of determining whether the whole of a writing was executed at the same time, and with the same ink, or at different times, and with different inks, Mr. Peacock further says that the photographic process is very effective because it not only copies the forms of letters but takes notice of differences in the color of two inks which are inappreciable by the eye.  He states that: 

“Where there is the least particle of yellow present in a color, the photograph will take notice of the fact by making the picture blacker, just in proportion as the yellow predominates, so that a very light yellow will take a deep black.  So any shade of green, or blue, or red, where there is an imperceptible amount of yellow, will pink by the photographic process more or less black, while either a red or blue varying to a purple, will show more or less paint as the case may be.”

As to deception which the eye will not detect, in regard to the age of paper, he says: 

“I have repeatedly examined papers which have been made to appear old by various methods, such as washing with coffee, with tobacco, and by being carried in the pocket, near the person, by being smoked or partially burned, and in various other ways.  I have in my possession a paper which has passed the ordeal of many examinations by experts and others, which purports to be two hundred years old, and to have been saved from the Boston fire.  The handwriting is a perfect fac-simile of that of Thomas Addington, the town clerk of Boston, two hundred years ago, and yet the paper is not over two years old.”