is the primary requisite for a conscientious opinion on the
genuineness of any submitted handwriting?" this expert unhesitatingly
replied, "An utter and entire absence of either feeling or prejudice.
In other words, one should be perfectly dispassionate when engaged in
such a work and use a first-class compound microscope."

To make his analysis the expert uses a microscope of great power, and
by a strict and close attention to the subject-matter he can determine
the exact means or methods employed in making the individual letters
and the formation of the words and also the several inks that were
used. Handwriting as defined by this expert is a mechanical operation
pure and simple. Its general excellence or the reverse is largely
dependent on the education which the hand has received. When a man
sits down to write he mechanically reproduces on paper what is in his
mind, and this may be said to be his natural handwriting. Should he
stop to think even for a moment, not of what he is transferring to the
paper but of the writing itself, he instantly ceases to write his
natural hand, the transcription becoming only a copy or drawing from
memory.

In the opinion of the expert, emphatically expressed, a person never
writes twice exactly alike. This is stated to be the point around
which all his subsequent developments revolve when examining a
manuscript. Let several examples of the natural handwriting of an
individual be compared. It is true that there will be a general
similarity, but, as has been asserted, when placed in juxtaposition or
subjected to a careful comparison under a microscope no two words or
letters will be found to be alike. Thus it is not the similarity
between two pieces of writing that would arouse suspicion with some
experts, but rather the natural dissimilarity. Based on this point