The writing on the five documents B to F I take to be the normal hand of the author, and that on A to be the same writer's hand altered so as to present a different appearance. I will call the specimens B to F the genuine examples, and A the disguised.
Experience shows that the person who writes an anonymous letter generally seeks to disguise his hand by departing as much as he deems possible from his normal writing. The usual hand of the writer of the genuine document is a free rounded hand sloping upwards towards the right. The writing of A presents exactly the features I would expect to find when, as appears to be the case here, the writer has adopted the familiar trick of sloping his writing in a direction opposite to his normal hand. While the result of this change is to alter the apparent style and general appearance of the writing, the alteration does not extend to certain tricks and characteristics which are plainly obvious in the genuine letters and are repeated in the anonymous letter A.
The writing in the genuine letters contains fourteen very distinctive peculiarities, or tricks of hand, which I find repeated in the anonymous letter A.
(Here describe them, as for example.)
1. The figure 4 in the dates is always made like the print form of that figure.
2. The small e is always of the Greek form.
3. The small t is always crossed by a bar thick at the beginning, tapering to a point, with its longest part behind the shank of the t [and so on].
The various points of resemblance are set out in detail, a separate paragraph for each, and each paragraph numbered.
It is extremely important that a report should be fully descriptive and written in plain, non-technical language, easily understood by the jury, who will have to decide whether the resemblance has been made out.
Too many handwriting experts spoil the effect of their evidence by employing technical language and presuming on the part of the jury an acquaintance with the methods of comparing handwritings.