Altered Documents--Treating Papers
Suspected of Forgery--Using Water to Detect Fraud--Discovering
Scratched Paper--Means Forgers Use to Mask Fraudulent Operations--How
to Prepare and Handle Test Papers--Detecting Paper That Has Been
Washed--Various Other Valuable Tests to Determine Forgery--A Simple
Operation That Anyone Can Apply--Iodine Used On Papers and Documents--An
Alcohol Test That is Certain--Bringing Out Telltale Spots--Double
Advantage of Certain Tests--Reappearance of Former Letters or
Figures--What Genuine Writing Reveals--When an Entire Paper or Document
is Forged.

The art of detecting forgery or fraud, in checks, drafts, documents,
seals, writing materials, or in the characters themselves is a study
that has attracted handwriting experts since its study was taken up.
There are almost infallible rules for the work and in this chapter is
given several new methods of research that will prove of the utmost
value to the public.

It is not an uncommon occurrence that wills and other public documents
are changed by the insertion of extra or substituted pages, thereby
changing the character of the instrument. Where this is suspected
careful inspection of the paper should be made--first, as to its shade
of color and fiber, under a microscope; second, as to its ruling;
third, as to its water-mark; fourth, as to any indications that the
sheets have been separated since their original attachment; fifth, as
to the writing--whether or not it bears the harmonious character of
the continuous writing, with the same pen and ink, and coincident
circumstances, or if typewritten, whether or not by the same operator
or the same machine. It would be a remarkable fact if such change were
to be made without betraying some tangible proof in some one or more
of the above enumerated respects.

Books of accounts are often changed by adding fictitious or fraudulent
entries in such spaces as may have been left between the regular
entries or at the bottom of the pages where there is a vacant space.
Where such entries are suspected, there should be at first a careful
inspection of the writing as to its general harmony with that which
precedes and follows, as to its size, slope, spacing, ink, and pen
used, and if in a book of original entry, the suspected entry should
be traced through other books, to see if it is properly entered as to
time and place, or vice versa.

The judgment by the naked eye as to the colors or shades of two