EXPERTS ON HANDWRITING.
LTo THE EDITOR 07 THE spscrAToR."1
was much interested in your article on "The Naval Cadet Case" in last week's issue. But may I say that the concluding paragraph is hard upon Mr. Gurrin? I should like to give a short account of his methods in one case in which he was absolutely right. He detected the culprit, and then all the other evidence was seen to fit in. This is how an expert's advice comes in ; no case naturally would be judged by an expert's opinion alone. I know at least one K.C. who says he has constantly had valuable help from Mr. Gurrin. The case I know of was at an office where a letter and some postcards were received, during a period of ten days, apparently in the writing of a lady engaged there. She at once sent them to Mr. Gurrin, together with specimens of her own writing and that of other persons in the office. Mr. Gurrin did not know anything of the disputed writings or of the persons whose writings were sent. He photographed some of the writings, and magnified them with the aid of a magic lantern; the thick up and down strokes of the imitated writing were, when magnified, seen to be sketched in with six or seven strokes, whereas the up and down strokes in the original writing were en bloc. Mr. Gurrin summed up fifteen pages of close evidence in four sentences, viz. :—(1) None of the writing is that of Miss —. (2) All is in evident imitation of her writing. (3) All is by one hand. (4) To the best of my belief the writing is by Miss — (another lady in the office). It was of course easier to detect that the writing was not that of the first lady than to find out whose it really was. But Mr. Gurrin started the detection. Other bite of evidence made it certain. One was that the person in question had addressed two of the cards to herself, which when looked at through a powerful magnifier were seen to have been traced with a sharp instrument and then inked in ; an old envelope, addressed to the imitator by the person she wished to malign, had been placed over a blank postcard and traced through ! Experts in banks detect forgeries, and it does not seem fair because Mr. Gurrin has made two mistakes that the enormous number of cases in which he has given substantial help should be
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