Coins—Real and Counterfeit
| Date | 01 April 1946 |
| Published date | 01 April 1946 |
| Author | W. J. Cannon |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X4601900205 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
COINS-REAL
AND
COUNTERFEIT
1°3
WHOSE
HANDWRITING
WAS
IT?
In
the recently decided case of Corbett v. Duguid, in which a
railway servant at Inverness successfully appealed against conviction
of reset of £49, part of the contents of a stolen mailbag, it appeared
that the sheriff had been influenced to some extent by evidence that the
word "
ROWAN"
(being the name of the thief), written in block capitals
on a scrap of pflper which accompanied a wallet containing £49 posted
to the local police some time after the accused had been interviewed
by them, was in the handwriting of the accused. Delivering the
judgment of the High Court of Justiciary, at the conclusion of the hear-
ing on appeal, the Lord Justice-Clerk(Lord Cooper) said," I take strong
exception to the word ' handwriting , when applied to this production
in the case. Identification by handwriting, as expounded in the standard
works on evidence and exemplified in many cases, depends upon
the
notorious individual characteristics of cursive
script-the
formation of
letters, the slope, the use of variant forms, the connections of the letters
and the innumerable distinctive features which, in many instances,
enable handwriting to be recognised at a glance and in others to be
identified by specific peculiarities detectable by the expert eye or
by scientific methods. Even when such handwriting in the proper
sense of the term is available, the evidence which, when expounded
by expert testimony, it affords, is still described in the latest edition of
Macdonald on Criminal
Law
(p. 542)
as'
admitted by all the textbooks
to be of little value
...
it is not by itself sufficient proof.' But here the
specimens laid before us disclose nothing
but
five block capital letters
drawn in pencil in the precise style in which 99 persons out of
100
would draw them and I am bound to say that it imposes an all
but
insupportable strain on the loyalty due to a tribunal of fact to accept
the suggestion that any inference could be drawn from comparing the
specimens, especially as we were informed that the only expert evidence
adduced for the instruction of the sheriff substitute consisted of the
testimony of two local policemen."
Coins-Real
and Counterfeit
By
DETECTIVE-SERGEANT
W. J. CANNON, F.G.S.
Fingerprint
Bureau,
City
of Glasgow Police
MONEY
MONEY, we are told, is the root of all evil, and we all know of
the old lady who wanted a piece of the root;
but
money, or
rather currency, is in fact a necessity in a civilised community and a
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