Besides the forementioned evidences of forgery by tracing, where
pencil or carbon guide-lines are used which must necessarily be
removed by rubber, there are liable to remain some slight fragments of
the tracing lines, while the mill finish of the paper will be impaired
and its fiber more or less torn out, so as to lie loose upon the
surface. Also the ink will be more or less ground off from the paper,
thus giving the lines a gray and lifeless appearance. And as
retouchings are usually made after the guide-lines have been removed,
the ink, wherever they occur, will have a more black and fresh
appearance than elsewhere. All these phenomena are plainly manifest
under the microscope. Where the tracing is made directly with pen and
ink over a transparency, as is often done, no rubbing is necessary,
and of course, the phenomena from rubbering does not appear.

Where signatures or other writings have been forged by previously
making a study and practice of the writing, to be copied until it has
been to a greater or less degree idealized, the hand must be trained
to its imitation so that it can be written with a more or less
approximation as to form and natural freedom.

Forgeries and tracings made by skilful imitators are the most
difficult of detection, as the internal evidence of forgery by tracing
is mostly absent. The evidence of free-hand forgery and tracing is
chiefly in the greater liability of the forger to inject into the
writing his own unconscious habit and to fail to reproduce with
sufficient accuracy that of the original writing, so that when
subjected to rigid analysis and microscopic inspection, the
spuriousness is made manifest and demonstrable. Specific attention
should be given to any hesitancy in form or movement in tracing which
is manifest in angularity or change of direction of lines, changed