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gious man, and has therefore forgotten that he executed it. He is aged forty-seven, stands five feet ten, is broad-shouldered, full-favored, with muscular hands, thick, hard, and small; he is a merchant and a bachelor, and finds it hard to give up when he has been mistaken. I judge that the man who sits at the other end of the table wrote his name to this note, and I think I can convince him of it, for his honest face corresponds to the morality of the signature. The jury will observe that the first letter of the name is written while the quill pen was full of ink, which was almost exhausted on the second letter and replenished on the third, and the operation is repeated five times. I think, also, that the writer was in poor health, and his muscles relaxed when he wrote his name. I am of the opinion, therefore, that the signature was made while the writer was on his back and the nib of the pen was higher than the tip.' "At this point of the testimony the face of the defendant against whose interest the witness was testifying became luminous, and he at once rose and declared that the statement of the expert was the truth, and that it had altogether passed from his mind till that moment. "I hope now I shall have the pleasure of giving you such an entertainment that you will remember it for your lifetime; and I know whereof I affirm when I state that my friend here present will, one hundred times in succession and without a mistake, from a single specimen of the handwriting of an individual, give his age within two years, his height within an inch, his weight within ten pounds, his profession, whether married or single, his temperament and peculiarities, his moral character, whether--" Mr. Sidney was here observed to shake his head in a most determined manner. "Or if my friend," proceeded Mr. Burchard, "will give us the characteristics of some of our neighbors who may be passing, this company will be equally delighted and astonished, for I assert that he will invariably hit off the peculiarity of a man from a single glance better than any of us after ten years of intercourse and acquaintance." Again Mr. Sidney shook his head, and the subject was not again referred to. At a late hour the company separated, each asserting that he had never passed a more enjoyable evening. The reader will understand that only fragments of the conversation are here given, and only such and so much as bear upon the question at t
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