It is not uncommon, when filling up checks or drafts, to take another pen, and with red ink write the amount across the face of the paper, and again make the figures in and through the signature.  All these precautions may make tampering with the amount more difficult for a clumsy novice, but it only imposes a few moments’ more work upon the accomplished manipulator.  He takes his strong solution of chloride of lime and rain water, or other prepared chemicals, and with a pen suited to the purpose, by neutralizing and abstracting the coloring properties of the ink, he carefully obliterates such portions of the lines in the figures and written amounts as suits his purpose, then easily makes the alteration he desires, the red ink coming out as readily as black.  And if the tint or coloring of the paper should have been affected by his cautious touch, he takes the proper shade of crayon or water-color, and carefully replaces the original shade.

Now, the signature not being touched, but remaining genuine, and the payer not being supposed to know who wrote the check, but only who signed it, he pays the amount specified, and the law holds the “maker of the check responsible when there is nothing in its appearance to excite suspicion, and the signature is proven genuine.”

CHAPTER VII

THE HANDWRITING EXPERT

No Law Regulating Experience and Skill Necessary to Constitute An Expert—­Experts Held Competent to Testify in Court—­Bank Officials and Employes Favored—­An Expert On Signatures—­Methods Experts Employ to Identify the Work of the Pen—­Where and When an Expert’s Services Are Needed—­Large Field and Growing Demand for Experts—­Qualifications of a Handwriting Expert—­How the Work Is Done—­A Good Expert Continuously Employed—­The Expert and the Charlatan—­Qualifying as an Expert—­A System Which Produces Results—­Principal Tests Applied by Handwriting Experts to Determine Genuineness—­Identification of Individual by His Handwriting—­How to Tell Kind of Ink and Process Used to Forge a Writing—­Rules Followed by Experts in Determining Cases—­The Testimony of a Handwriting Expert—­Explaining Methods Employed to Detect Forged Handwriting—­The Courts and Experts—­What an Expert May Testify to—­Trapping a Witness—­Proving Handwriting by Experts—­General Laws Regulating Experts—­The Base Work of a Handwriting Expert—­Important Facts an Expert Begins Examination With—­A Few Words of Advice and Suggestion About “Pen Scope”—­Detection of Forgery Easy If Rules Suggested Are Observed—­Expert Witnesses, Courts, and Jurors.