Identification of Typewriting
| Published date | 01 July 1946 |
| Author | George Maclean |
| Date | 01 July 1946 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X4601900307 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
IDENTIFICATION
OF
TYPEWRITING
199
was sentenced to six months' hard labour for the larceny of the car
and was fined on each of four supplementary charges of fraudulent
alteration of the documents. At the Court, he agreed to repay the sum
of £280 to Mr. A.
Identification of
Typewriting
By
GEORGE
MACLEAN, F.R.M.S.
Detective Lieutenant,
Finger
Print
Bureau, City of Glasgow Police
THE use of typewriting since the first
machine-a
Remington-
appeared in the United States of America (1874-9), has increased
from year to year until, at the present time, it has almost completely
superseded the pen in so far as the writing of all business letters and
documents is concerned.
It
is, therefore, only natural that there should
also be a great increase in the use of the typewriter in the production of
fraudulent documents.
This
latter fact may possibly be also due to the natural assumption
by the persons producing these documents
that
the typewriter has no
individuality, and that, therefore, the writer of the document will be
more difficult to trace and the fraud more easily perpetrated. Especially
is this true in respect of the anonymous letter writers. These persons
very often send their mischief-making compositions to people who are
familiar with the handwriting of the sender. They, therefore, resort
to the typewriter because to them, like most people, all typewritten
documents produced on standard machines have the same general
appearance.
This
belief in the non-individuality of typewriters should not be
shared by police officers, particularly detective officers,
part
of whose
duties it is to carry
out
any investigation in connection with fraudulent
documents.
They
should know
that
typewriting can very often be
identified as the work of a certain make of machine, and also,
that
it is
usually possible to identify the typewriting of a particular machine.
As Albert S. Osborne states in his magnificent work Questioned Docu-
ments:
" He should know what to look for, and how to look at it, and
should know what can be shown and how to show it ; and a portion
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