HANDWRITING AND THE CRIMINAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 27

HANDWRITING AND THE CRIMINAL

y Cardinal Richelieu was among the 'roost brilliant men who have , ever .lived, but he did not entirely escape, ;fr.om the superstitions of. his period.. >"Give, we," he once said, "two lines, .Qf. a man's handwriting and I will •hang • him," This observation arose ,'out of a belief common enough at that; /time that it' was possible to read char-, actex'from handwriting. It, is one which still/ to some extent, persists, !but It may as well be said at once! -that, those who claim the ability to read character from handwriting are :'! always, or, nearly: always, charlatans .^ncj. quacks, writes Henry T, F. Rhodes, famous exp,ert in scientific detection, sin;, the ''Adelaide Chronicle." i

i;i,; But 'tJji§'is\ hot to say that, han'd■"writing cannot be. psychologically inite^OTeJed., and tUat," certaiq characteristics,/cannot be. deduced, from a. ■study "of the Jiandwriting, An ■'•pxasapte of this is tti% handwriting of $he xins'ape'or of neuropaths. There 'are certain kindi of mental disease AyhicJv definitely- manifest themselves in- the handwriting even before the symptoms are very notic.ea.ble in the patient. General'.^ paralysis of the insane is a striking example of' this. So _.flar a? it, isK possible, to. describe it in general, 'it might be said to resemble ,a, : ruin; of what was once well constructed.

if.: If the handwriting. was once good tftnd distinguished, traces of its former greatness remain, Again, to illustrate from senile handwriting the while often, remainipg.'.\vell- formed, show a. particular kind :6f tremble which is unmistakable. INeuropaths and. hysterics show cumu--;lative "fatigue, so that the beginning iof a fafely long letter may be well jwritten, and the end almost illegible.

V The characters pf, for example, genferal paralytics "may vary greatly, but 'certaint characteristics they possess in. icommon. It is therefore true that in jsome cases, at any rate, it is possible ito. predict with, certainty that the &uthbr of a given piece of handwritingwill possess certain characteristics. {vis it possible; to go further than Ws? ■ ' ' ' '

«? The problem is not at all easy to answer>, Early students of handwriting studied, the matter very carefully, jiut iti caonoi be said that their conolusjQna, very satisfactory from a scientific point;of view, It is difficult to che^fc tiik .results., When. it is a

matter of character and psychology even experts are liable to disagree. There are too many variable factors to make any very definite conclusions possible.

Modern investigators tend to concentrate on the examinations of the handwriting of criminals. There is a very good reason for this. It is clearly much easier to decide the main question at issue, There may be differences of opinion as to whether Mr. Jones is proud, deceitful, or superstitious; there can be no doubt that tht man who "has been consistently convicted of, for example, burglary is a criminal. The problem is do his criminal tendencies betray themselves in his handwriting?

We are very far from being able to give any definite opinion, but the investigation of criminal handwriting has proved an extraordinarily interesting study. The handwriting of Joseph Vacher* notorious murderer of shepherds, a type of criminal similar to "Jack the Ripper" and Peter Kurten, is particularly interesting. He was executed in 1897 at Bourg. Vacher was not normal. He had attempted to com-? Mit suicide and a bullet had lodged in his head.

Abnormalities in criminal handwriting are not always so evident, bu.t highly magnified photographs bring out interesting points. The word "dangereurse" (incorrect spelling) was written by Konigstein Ravacol, another nqtorious murderer executed in France, This man had been moderately well educated, but the photograph reveals the extraordinary slowness with which he.wrote. There are numerous hesitations, and the letters are clumsily joined together. The "g" for instance, which is normally made with one stroke, has been made with two, and even then with great, hesitancy.

It is a remarkable fact that, a tendency to laboured movement, an in-, clination to draw rather than to write, is very frequently found in criminal handwriting.

James Orton, the defendant in the notorious Tichborne case, who endeavoured to pass himself off as the deceased Roger Tichborne, and who was afterwards convicted of perjury and conspiracy, wi-nt" more quickly, out there are many hesitations and retouchings, and again the letters , are often very clumsily joined.