For several hours he was on trial before the board with a very large number of specimens of handwriting of men of mark, and he astonished them all beyond measure by giving the occupation, age, height, size, temperament, strength of nerve, nationality, morality, and other peculiarities of every one of the writers. His success was not partial, it was complete. There was not simply a preponderance of evidence, it was beyond a doubt. The directors did not question the fact; but how was it done? Some thought mesmerism could account for it, and others thought it miraculous.
The first experiment was this. Each director wrote on a piece of paper the names of all the board. Eleven lists were handed him, and he specified the writer of each by the manner in which he wrote his own name. He then asked them to write their own or any other name, with as much disguise as they pleased, and as many as pleased writing on the same piece of paper; and in every instance he named the writer.
As an example of the other experiments, take this one. The superscription of a letter was shown him. He began immediately:—
"A clergyman, without doubt, who reads his sermons, and is a little short-sighted. He is aged sixty-one, is six feet high, weighs about one hundred and seventy, is lean, bony, obstinate, irritable, economical, frank, and without a particle of hypocrisy or conceit. He is naturally miserly, and bestows charity only from a sense of duty. His mind is methodical and strong, and he is not a genius or an interesting preacher. If he has decided upon any doctrine or construction of Scripture, it would be as impossible to change him as to make him over again."
The company began to laugh, when one of them said,—
"Come, come, Mr. Sidney, you are disclosing altogether too much of my father-in-law."
And now the supposed forged notes were handed him. He gave the characteristics of the signatures very nearly as he had before done in the office, but more particularly and minutely. He analyzed the handwriting,—showed the points of resemblance, where before none could be discerned,—showed that the writing, interpreted by itself, was intended to be disguised,—explained the difference between the different parts of the notes,—pointed out where the writer was firm in his purpose, and his nerves well braced, and where his fears overcame his resolution,—where he had paused to recover his courage, and for a considerable time,—where he had changed his pen, and how the forgery was continued through several days,—what parts were done by Temple, and what by Conway,—
"Till all the interim
Between the acting of the dreadful thing
And the first motion"
was brought so vividly and truthfully to mind that Mr. Conway fell to the floor as if dead. The cashier, relieved from a pressure that had for weary months been grinding his very soul, burst into tears. A scene of strange excitement ensued, during which Mr. Conway muttered incoherent sentences in condemnation of Temple and then of himself,—now with penitence, and then with rage. Recovering his composure, he suggested the Jew as the guilty party. Mr. Sidney then dissected the handwriting of the Jew, and demonstrated that there was as great a difference between his chirography and a New-Englander's as between the English and the Chinese characters,—showed how the Jew must have been exceedingly timid, and stated the probability that he had left the city not because he had taken any part in the forgery, but because he had been frightened away. Then turning to Conway, he gave him a lecture such as no mortal before ever gave or received. The agony of Conway's mind so distorted his body as made it painful in the extreme to all beholders. "His inmost soul seemed stung as by the bite of a serpent." When at last Mr. Sidney turned and took from his valise a small steel safe, which Conway recognized as his own, "the terrors of hell got hold of him," and his anguish was indescribably horrible. The little safe had been by some unknown and unaccountable process taken from a larger one in Conway's office, and was unopened. Neither Mr. Sidney nor the directors have ever seen its contents; but in consideration that it should not be opened, Mr. Conway confessed his crime in the very form of Mr. Sidney's description, paid the notes before leaving the bank, and remains a director to this day. As is often the case, the greater criminal goes unwhipped of justice.
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