Occasionally it happens in fraudulent alteration of writing that a stroke or part of a letter may touch some of the original writing, and betray itself by being above instead of below the older letter.
Thus in Fig. B the words “in full to date” were added to the receipt after the signature had been put, and it will be noticed in the enlargement of the cross stroke of the “t” in “date” and the top of the capital “C” in the signature (Fig. C), that the alleged older writing comes uppermost. The point at issue in this dispute was whether the receipt referred to a whole sum or only to a payment on account.
The writer in the course of his experience has seen many similar fraudulent alterations, but has never met with a case like that described by Mr. Osborn, where the perforations which are in common use as a means of preventing fraud had been carefully filled in, and new perforations made. Fig. D shows that a fraud of this kind may be detected with certainty by the aid of the microscope, the edges of the original perforations appearing as rings of a lighter hue.
ALTERED NUMBER
ALTERED PERFORATION
Detection of Forgery by means of the Camera and the Microscope
By kind permission of “Knowledge”
The subsequent addition of writing to a document was in one instance detected by the fact that the paper had been folded before the later writing was introduced, and in the crease thus formed the sizing on the surface of the paper had become worn, leaving the fibres more porous. Here the ink had shown a tendency to become diffused, and the blurred edges of the lines thus produced were very manifest.