or page is forged, the ornamentation,
flourishes, or the capitals at its head will often be seen to be out
of keeping, either with its nature or with the supposed author's
habits in similar cases. In a writing all must agree, place, day,
year, handwriting, superscription or heading, signature, and material
carrying the writing, especially paper, both as to constitution and
color and ink.

See illustrations of various kinds of handwriting at end of this book.

CHAPTER XV

GUIDED HANDWRITING AND METHOD USED

The Most Frequent and Dangerous Method of Forgery--How to Detect
a Guided Signature--What Guided Handwriting Is and How It Is
Done--Character of Such Writing--Writing by a Guided Hand--Difficulty
in Writing--Force Exercised by Joint Hands--A Hand More or Less
Passive--Work of the Controlling Hand--How Guided Writing Appears--Two
Writers Acting in Opposition--Distorted Writing--How a Legitimate
Guided Hand is Directed and Supported--Pen Motion Necessary to Produce
Same--Influence in Guiding a Stronger Hand--Avoiding an Unnatural and
Cramped Position--Effect of the Brain on Guided Hand--Separating
Characteristics From Guided Joint Signature--Detecting Writing by a
System of Measurement.

Guided handwriting is one of the most frequent means of forgery and
oftentimes the most difficult to detect. It has been established that
with care the elements of each handwriting can be detected and proven
in a guided signature. The leading handwriting experts of the world
are unanimous in declaring that it is possible for holding another's
hand in making a guided signature to infuse the character of the
guider's hand into the writing.

Guided handwriting is the writing produced by two hands conjointly and
is usually erratic, and at first sight, hard to connect with the
handwriting of any one person.

The character and quality of writing in case of a controlled or
assisted hand must depend largely upon the relative force, exercised
by the joint hands. The difficulty in writing arises from the
antagonizing motion of one hand upon the other, which is likely to
produce an unintelligible scrawl, having little or none of the
habitual characteristics of either hand.

Where one hand is more or less passive, the controlling hand doing the
writing, its characteristics may be more or less manifest in the
writing. But obviously the controlling hand must be seriously
obstructed in its motions by even a passive hand; and since