OF WHAT VALUE?

Evening Star, Issue 20993, 6 January 1932, Page 1

OF WHAT VALUE?

HANDWRITING EXPERTS A'case in the High Court, involving a dispute over handwriting, has required the assistance of expert caligraphists (says an English paper). Compared with other, professional experts—the doctor, for example—the handwriting i expert suffers a disad-; vantage which has led to varying judicial estimates of his value. He can! produce nb recognised qualification beyond the claim that he has made a* special study of the subject. In spite of this drawback, the assistance of the handwriting expert has proved of the greatest value in very many cases. Conversely, it has misled' so often that the practice has become almost universal for judges and juries 1 to treat this kind of testimony rather] as advice than as evidence, and as! assisting, but not over-riding independent opinion. Yet there may be circumstances in which a handwriting expert, even when only present in court, and not put in! the witness box, may prove a difficulty to an observant judge. Once the late Sir Gorell Barnes had before him a jactitation case in which handwriting was involved, and he made this remark:,— “ I have noticed during the trial an expert in handwriting of great expert, ence—Mr Guerrin. I feel sure that,! had it been possible to point out any, difference between the signature in the register and the handwriting in the letters, I should have seen that gentle-1 man in the box, and should have had | the benefit of his experience. His ab-| sence is a remarkable feature in this case.” Not infrequently the suspected per-, son is his or her own enemy. A woman defendant was accused of, and denied,! writing a libellous missive, in which was the word “ lillies,” so written,.. The astute judge asked her to write down a portion of the letter in which) this word appeared. She did so, andi spelt it “ lillies,” _ and, ini answer to, a question, she said she thought that was the right spelling. While not in! itself completely conclusive, it was a damning test, a sound experiment. A' bad speller does not instinctively per-' ceive such an error. A. handwriting expert was before Lord Justice Scrutton, _ when Mr Jus-, tice Scrutton, and this dialogue ensued between the two:— “Did you give evidence before me' in a case at York in 1910?”-' “ Yes.” “ Did you ask me whether you were to give evidence for the plaintiff or as an adviser of the court?”—“ I may. have clone so. I do not remember.” ' “ Did you give evidence that the will was genuine?”—“ Yes.” , “And did the daughtgg ..afterwards adei|L that" it ’ tras a-"forgery ?”—“ I believe so.” ' " - . ■' After this counsel declined to question the “ expert ” any further, and his Lordship, having remarked that he was not impressed with the witness’s evidence, commented,' “ There is little, if anything, that the" expert can do which the tribunal cannot do for itself.” Mr Justice Hawkins once had art, encounter with the most famous of all handwriting experts, Mr Netherfield,. and thus relates in his ‘ Reminiscences ’ _ “ When I rose, to cross-examine X handed to the expert six slips of paper, each of which was written in a different kind of handwriting. Netherfield took up his large pair qf spectacles, magnifiers, which lie _ always carried., Then he began to polish them with a great deal of care, saying, as Tie performed the operation, ‘ I see, Mr Hawkins, what you are going to try to do. You want to put me in a hole. “ ‘ I do, Mr Netherfield, and if you are ready for the hole, tell me, were those pieces of paper written by one hand about the same time? “ Ho examined them carefully, and after a considerable time said, No, they are written at different times by different hands.’ *By different persons, you would say?’ Yes, certainly.’ ‘ Now, Netherfield, you are in the hole. I wrote them myself, this morning, at this desk.’ ” Alongside this debit side of the evidence of the expert caligraphist must, be placed the pronouncement to its credit of the late Lord Alverstene tha*j has proved of the greatest value I numbers of cases.