Ways of Living.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 351, 29 January 1903, Page 2

Ways of Living.

HABD WORK AND BISKY. ST>WSR OMEN are not as clever sinners as men, as a rule, said a handMMolfts writing expert; sot so clever when they try to assume handwriting, at least. They cannot always be called sinners at all in their favourite attempt at disguising their writing, which tak*s the shape of the anonymous letter, for it is nothing more or less than a form of hysteria which sometimes has to be treated later at sanatoria or else yield to better physical conditions and the application of various common sense metheds The woman's anonymous letter is nt at its best a very clever affair. The woman writer is pretty apt to give herself away in one way or another, feeling sure that like an ostrich with its head in the sand, as Mr. Kinsley puts it, she will not be discovered, because she has disguised her writing and has not signed her name.

Aside from the anonymous letter, the weman confines herself chiefly to tampering with wills, contracts, and notes to establish claims upon estates ot deceased persons. In these things she is sometimes exceedingly dangerous, and plays upon her womanhood to win her case at times when her work has not been otherwise well carried out. Uttering forged cheques ia not, as a rule, a weakness of hers : not necessarily because she would not if she could, when she is inclined to make money in a nefarious way, bet because ale has less opportunity than men. When she does anything of this kind it is usually when in pursuit of her peculiarly feminine amusement, shopping.

How Women Foeoebs Work. It is the adventuress who goeß more largely into this work, plying the trade, as a rule, as the accomplice of some man, ,the woman actinir as the 'layer-out.' She purchases, say, .£lO worth of goods in one of the large shops, to which she drives in a handsome carriage, orders the goods sent to a fictitious address, then has a forged cheque cashed, and departs, taking the change. There are *angs in this game frequently who 'do' a town hurriedly and leave for another. Tnere is no real certainty that the woman is the cheque maker; more probably she is not. Women of middle-class and respectable families have been known to raise cheques or forge them, being overcome with a desire for the pretty things in the shops tnatare beyond their means. There are wealthy women spendthrifts who have forged their husbands' names for thousands of dollars.

iNONYMOOB LeTTEB WbITEBS. Among the anonymous letter writers the most offensive letters, as well as the greatest number, are written by women. The work women have done in this lino has excited the surprise of both psychologists and neurologists. One case which tbe expert cites in this class is that of a young girl who tied herself to a tree, cu off her long braids of hair, and let tbem fall by her side with a letter supposed to be from some young man, threatening her The youth was in danger of lynching until it was discovered that the girl was the writer of the letter. She was morbid and hysterical, craved sympathy, and took tnis way to gain it. An interesting case was that of a young woman who was a very good customer of one of the large dry goods firms in a western city. Every one in the store, from the proprietors down to the clerks, began to be overwhelmed with anonymous letters. These accused one of the floorwalkers of the place with being in love with the young woman customer. There was great excitement over the affair. The young woman brought the letters she herself claimed to have received to the store and told of fainting and being generally overcome upon receiving them. There seemed to be a pang at work, for the letters were in four distinctly different handwritings; It was surmised that some of the cleiks must be at the bottom of the trouble. A bushel basket of cash cheques was turned ever to the expert to compare with the anonymous letters. A first surprising discovery was that the four different styles of handwriting in the different letters were written hy the one person, and the most startling discovery was that tbe writer was the young woman who was posing as the greatest sufferer from them. The solution of the mystery was to at the youßg woman was in love with the floor walker. He did not know it, and she had taken this delicate way of enlightening him, going to him for sympathy for the persecution she was undergoing. How to bridge over the trouble was a matter the firm was at a loss for a time to discover. Then they confided to the young woman that they had discovered a way of settling the matter. Neither they nor anyone who received the letters was to open them, and as tb- y accumulated they were to be burned. The customer owed a large bill at the plac, and it was feared if she found that she had been discovered there would be trouble in collecting it. This bit < f diplomacy settled everything, for as the letters were not to ba read there was no good in writing them, and no more weie received. This was a case in which no one was seriously affected. Some Cleveb Wbitsbs.

In some instances women forgers go to work in a cool, calculating manner, and do their work cleverly. One who did this sued the estate of a dead man fer business and professional services and showed a letter from him containing a proposal of marriage. She exhibited the acumen of a lawyer. Nothing, apparently, was forgotten ; there was no misleading expression, and each letter supported the othtrs. There was no hysteria here, nothing but the calculating cleverness of a sharp business woman, but the case is considered somewhat exceptional. In one case in which a woman was interested there was no forgery of the name, for a different method had been used. Tbe woman presented notes signed by the deceased to the value < f .£2,000 There was no forgery of the nams in this case, for slips containing memoranda signed by the man had been utilised, everything but the name erased, and the form of a note written in. This waa done with little forethought, fvr the man was known to be opposed to giving notes, was proved never to have given one, and being a methodical busirees man his legal papeisweie always earefully drawn. Jmitatino Chibqgbaphy. There is not Baid to be more cleverness in one sex than in another in the ability to imitate handwriting. It is a characteristic, not a matter of six. It requires first the powers of correct observation, and then the mechanical ability of the hand to copy. Women are at a disadvantage in such matters in that they are not, as a rule, as much in the habit of writing as men. Then, too, the signatures which are forged to obtain money are, as a rule, those of men, and the woman has the disadvantage of having a feminine ityle of handwriting. There are four things required, the expert says, to enable one to successfully copy another's handwriting. The first is to know the peculiarities of one's own

style and to be able to discover the peculiarities of the handwriting to be copied and to be able to put them on. A mistake that is frequently made, ia by chance, to take an autograph to copy which is exceptional to ths ordinary hand* writing c f the writer. No man signs his name twice exactly in the same manner. He may at times make a perceptible differecc, thongh quite by accident. For instance, he may make a downward stroke with an upward stroke for this oae time. The copyist, not being familiar with the practice, chances to find an autograph with the up stroke, copies it faithfully a number of times, and then learns that when put to the test it will differ perceptibly from a similar number of genuine autographs. Specimens of signatures used as exhibits in the Bice will case are of interest as showing the weaknesses of the copyist. The forged signatures are all exactly alike, line for line and dot for dot. The dot of the 'i' in Bice in the forged signature is perfectly round, and in e-ach case exactly over the I.' In the genuine signatures it falls anywhere, as the dots will fall in the writing of an ordinary person. Dots to 'i' in genuine Bice signatures are sometimes in the form of shoit dashes, sometimes over the ' i,' but quite as likely to have fallen over the 'c' or even back to the ' e,' and in some esses the dot is in the upper top to the capital's.'