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 with natural freedom.

Forgeries thus 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 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, manifest in angularity or change of direction of
lines, changed relations and proportions of letters, slant of the
writing, its mechanical arrangement, disconnected lines, retouched
shades, etc.

Photographs, greatly enlarged, of both the signatures in question and
the exemplars placed side by side for comparison will greatly aid in
making plain any evidences of forgery by tracing.

It sometimes occurs that the forger, fearful that his attempt to
imitate another's writing would be too easily detected if made with a
free hand, sketches in pencil the characters he intends to make in ink
on the document, or traces them by means of blackened paper at the
appropriate place. The evidences of this are very likely to appear
when the document is examined in transmitted light.