The "Fabers," who date back to the year 1761, are known all over the world as lead pencil makers. They also manufacture many inks and have done so since 1881, when they built now factories at Noisy-le-Sac, near Paris. Blue-black and violet-black writing and copying inks of the class made by the "Antoines" are the principal kinds. They do not offer for sale, tanno-gallate of iron ink without "added" color. A branch house in New York City has remained since 1843.

"Stafford's" violet combined writing and copying ink was first placed on the New York market in 1869, though it was in 1858 that Mr. S. S. Stafford, the founder of the house, began the manufacture of inks, which he has continued to do to the present day. His chemical writing fluids are very popular, but he does not make a tanno-gallate of iron ink without "added" color, for the trade.

Charles M. Higgins of Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1880 commenced the manufacture of "carbon" inks for engrossing, architectural and engineering purposes, and has succeeded in producing an excellent liquid "Indian" ink, which will not lose its consistency if kept from the air. It can also be used as a writing ink, if thinned down with water. He does not make a tanno-gallate of iron ink without "added" color.

Maynard and Noyes, whose inks were much esteemed in this section for over fifty years, is no longer in business, as is the case with many others well known during the first half of the nineteenth century.

The enormous quantities of ink of every color, quality and description made in the United States almost surpasses belief. It is said that the output for home consumption alone exceeds twelve millions of gallons per annum, and for export three thousand gallons per annum.

It is very safe to affirm that less than 1/50 of 1 per cent of this quantity represents a tanno-gallate of iron ink WITHOUT "added" color. Most colored inks and "gall" ones which possess "added" color if placed on paper under ordinary conditions will not be visible a hundred years hence.

This statement of mine might be considered altogether paradoxical were it not for associated evidential facts, which by proving themselves have established its correctness and truth. To repeat one of them is to refer to the report of Professors Baird and Markoe, who examined for the state of Massachusetts all the commercial inks on the market at that time.

"As a conclusion, since the great mass of inks on the market are not suitable for records, because of their lack of body and because of the quantity of unstable color which they contain, and because the few whose coloring matters are not objectionable are deficient in gall and iron or both, we would strongly recommend that the State set its own standard for the composition of inks to be used in its offices and for its records."

An official ink modelled somewhat after the formula employed by the government of Great Britain was contracted for by the state of Massachusetts. It read as follows:

"Take of pure, dry tannic acid, 23.4 parts by weight. of crystal gallic acid, 7.7 parts. of ferrous sulphate, 30.0 parts. of gum arabic, 10.0 parts. of diluted hydrochloric acid, 25.0 parts. of carbolic acid, 1.0 part. of water, sufficient to make up the mixture at the temperature of 60 degrees F. to the volume of 1,000 parts by weight of water."

Such an ink prepared after this receipt would be a strictly pure tanno-gallate of iron ink WITHOUT any "added" color whatever.

The estimation in which such an ink is held by the majority of the ink manufacturers is best illustrated by quoting from two of the most prominent ones, and thus enable the reader to draw his own conclusions.

"We do not make a tanno-gallate of iron ink without added color, and so far as we know, there is no such ink on the market, as it would be practically colorless and illegible." * * * * * * *

"There is no such ink (a tanno-gallate of iron ink without added color) manufactured by any ink- maker as far as I know. It is obsolete."

The commercial names bestowed on the multitude of different inks placed on the market by manufacturers during the last century are in the thousands. A few of them are cited as indicative of their variety, some of which are still sold under these names.

Kosmian Safety Fluid, Bablah Ink, Universal Jet Black, Treasury Ledger Fluid, Everlasting Black Ink, Raven-Black Ink, Nut-gall Ink, Pernambuco Ink, Blue Post Office Ink, Unchangeable Black, Document Safety Ink, Birmingham Copying Ink, Commercial Writing Fluid, Germania Ink, Horticultural Ink, Exchequer Ink, Chesnut Ink, Carbon Safety Ink, Vanadium Ink, Asiatic Ink, Terra-cotta Ink, Juglandin Ink, Persian Copying, Sambucin, Chrome Ink, Sloe Ink, Steel Pen Ink, Japanese Ink, English Office Ink, Catechu Ink, Chinese Blue Ink, Alizarin Ink, School Ink, Berlin Ink, Resin Ink, Water-glass Ink, Parisian Ink, Immutable Ink, Graphite Ink, Nigrilin Ink, Munich Ink, Electro-Chemical, Egyptian Black, "Koal" Black Ink, Ebony Black Ink, Zulu Black, Cobalt Black, Maroon Black, Aeilyton Copying, Dichroic, Congress Record, Registration, "Old English," etc.

The list of over 200 names, which follow, includes those of manufacturers of the best known foreign and domestic "black" inks and "chemical writing fluids" in use during the past century, as well as those of the present time.

Adriana Allfield Anderson Antoine Arnaudon Arnold Artus Ballade Ballande Barnes Bart Bartram Beaur Behrens Belmondi Berzelius Bizanger Blackwood Blair Bolley Bonney Bossin Boswell Bottger Boutenguy Braconnot Brande Bufeu Bufton Bure Carter Caw Cellier Champion Chaptal Chevallier Clarke Close Cochrane Collin Cooke Coupier and Collins Coxe Crock Cross Darcet Davids Davis Delunel Delarve Delang Derheims Dize Draper Druck Duhalde Dumas Dumovlen Dunand Dunlap Ellis Eisner Faber Faucher Faux Featherstone Fesneau Fontenelle Ford Fourmentin Freeman Fuchs Gaffard Gastaldi Geissler Geoffroy Gebel Goold Goupeir Grasse Green Guesneville Gullier Guyon Guyot Haenles Hager Haldat Hanle Hare Harrison Hausman Heeren Henry Herepath Hevrant Higgins Hogy Hunt Hyde Jahn James Joy Karmarsch Kasleteyer Kindt Klaproth Kloen Knaffl Knecht Lanaux Lanet Larenaudiere Lemancy Lenormand Leonhardi Lewis Ley Kauf Link Lipowitz Lorme Luhring Lyons MacCullogh Mackensic Mathieu Maurin Maynard and Noyes Melville Mendes Meremee Merget Minet Moller Moore Mordan Moser Morrell Mozard Murray Nash Nissen Ohme Ott Paul Payen Perry Peltz Petibeau Platzer Plissey Pomeroy Poncelet Prollius Proust Pusher Rapp Reade Redwood Reid Remigi Reinmann Rheinfeld Ribaucourt Ricker Roder Ruhr Runge Sanford Schaffgotoch Schleckum Schmidt Schoffern Scott Seldrake Selmi Simon Souberin Souirssean Stafford Stark Stein Stephens Stevens Syuckerbuyk Swan Tabuy Tarling Thacker Thomas Thumann Todd Tomkins Trialle Triest Trommsdorff Underwood Vallet Van Moos Vogel Wagner Walkden Wallach Waterlous Windsor and Newton Winternitz Woodmansee Worthington



CHAPTER XXIII.

CHEMICO-LEGAL INK.

ESTIMATED VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AS HELD BY THE COURT OF APPEALS—NOW BEYOND THE PURVIEW OF CRITICISM—VERDICTS IN THE TRIALS OF CAUSES AFFECTED BY SUCH EVIDENCE—LENGTH OF TIME NECESSARY TO OVERCOME PREJUDICE AND IGNORANCE— WHERE OBJECTIONS TO SUCH EVIDENCE EMANATE— SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT SUCH EVIDENCE GENERALLY— WHEN PRECEDENT WAS MADE TO CHEMICALLY EXAMINE A COURT EXHIBIT BEFORE TRIAL—THE CONTROVERSY IN WHICH JUDGE RANSOM MADE THIS NEW DEPARTURE—CITATION OF THE CASE AND ITS OUTCOME— DECISION IN THE GORDON WILL CASE OBTAINED BY THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE—COMPLETE STORY ABOUT IT—HISTORY OF THE DIMON WILL CASE AND HOW CHEMISTRY MADE IT POSSIBLE TO CONSIDER IT—OPINION OF JUDGE INGRAHAM—PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK V. CODY—THE ATTEMPT TO PROVE AN ALLEGED "GOULD" BIRTH CERTIFICATE GENUINE, FRUSTRATED BY CHEMICAL EVIDENCE—THE DEFENDANT CONVICTED—THE PEOPLE V. KELLAM—CHEMICAL EVIDENCE MAKES THE TRUTH KNOWN—THE HOLT WILL CASE AND THE EVIDENCE WHICH AFFECTED ITS RESULT—THE TIGHE WILL CASE—OPINION OF JUDGE FITZGERALD.

"The administration of justice profits by the progress of science, and its history shows it to have been almost the earliest in antagonism to popular delusion and superstition. The revelations of the microscope are constantly resorted to in protection of individual and public interests. . . . If they are relied upon as agencies for accurate mathematical results in mensuration and astronomy, there is no reason why they should be deemed unreliable in matters of evidence. Wherever what they disclose can aid or elucidate the just determination of legal controversies there can be no well- founded objection to resorting to them." Frank v. Chemical Nat. Bank, 37 Superior Court (J. & S.) 34, affirmed in Court of Appeals, 84 N. Y. 209.

THIS decision by a final court of adjudicature, expresses in no uncertain terms the now generally estimated value of evidence which science may reveal. The importance which that branch of it denominated "Chemico-legal ink" has attained and its utilization in many trials of causes both civil as well as criminal, places it beyond the purview of criticism or objection. With the introduction of a new class of inks in the last two decades, its scope has been much broadened.

Innumerable verdicts by juries wherever the system prevails, all over the world, the opinions of learned judges, whether presiding during a jury trial or sitting alone, more or less affected by this character of evidence, presents fairly the trend of the views of the public mind respecting it.

Constant experiment and successful demonstrations, covering a period of over fifty years, was necessary to overcome prevailing prejudices and ignorance.

The conditions to-day, which happily obtain, are that the objection to the introduction of such evidence finds its source usually in the side seeking to obscure and hide the truth or facts, while the honest litigant or innocent individual hastens to advocate its employment.

Another feature worthy of consideration is that persons who possess intimate knowledge of ink chem. istry and who might otherwise successfully perpetrate fraud if opportunity presented itself, refrain from making the attempt because of that very knowledge, which is sufficient also to teach them of the possible exposure of their efforts. Again, they and others are aware of the reliance placed on chemico-legal evidence as an aid to the cause of justice by courts and juries and this is an added reason why they hesitate to take chances. These propositions being true, they establish another one, viz: that most of the attempted frauds at the present time in this connection, are by the ignorant and those whose conceit does not permit them to believe that any one knows more than themselves.

Chemico-legal ink evidence as before stated has been employed in the trials of causes for many years; but it was not until the year 1889 that a precedent was established for the chemical examination of a suspected document preceding any trial. The honor of this departure from the ordinary modes of procedure belongs to the Hon. Rastus S. Ransom, who was surrogate of the county of New York at the time.

The matter in controversy was an alleged will executed in triplicate by one Thomas J. Monroe. Charges were made that the three wills were spurious, as they were facsimiles of each other. It was for the main purpose of determining the methods of their make-up that Judge Ransom rendered the opinion and made the order for its chemical examination which is cited in full:

Estate of Thomas J. Monroe.—"This is an application by the special guardian and contestant in this proceeding, which is now pending before the assistant, for leave to photograph the various papers which have been filed as the will of the deceased, and to compel the filing of two parts of one of said wills, which was executed in triplicate; likewise that the last paper be subjected to chemical tests for the purpose of disclosing the nature of the composition of the ink and the process or processes to which it has been subjected.

"Upon the oral argument the surrogate decided the applications first stated in favor of the petitioner, reserving only the question of his power to direct or permit the chemical tests. The special guardian on the oral argument stated that he was unable, to find any authority for the application.

"Consultation of the various sources of authority upon the subject of expert testimony and the various tests for the purpose of establishing or disproving handwriting has not resulted in the discovery of any authority for granting the application. It is apparent, however, from some of the cases that such an examination must have been permitted; for instance, in Fulton v. Hood (34th Penn. State Reports, 365), expert testimony was received in corroboration of positive evidence to prove that the whole of an instrument was written by the same hand, with the same ink, and at the same time. It is inconceivable how testimony of any value could be given as to the character of ink with which an instrument was written, unless it had been subjected to a chemical test. The writer of a valuable article in the eighteenth volume of the American Law Register, page 281 (R. U. Piper, an eminent expert of Chicago, Ill.), in commenting upon the rule as stated in the case of Fulton v. Hood (supra), very properly says:

" 'Microscopical and chemical tests may be competent to settle the question, but these should not be received as evidence, I think, unless the expert is able to show to the court and the jury the actual results of his examination, and also to explain his methods, so that they can be fully understood.'

"The writer of this article is also authority for the statement that in the French Courts every manipulation or experiment necessary to elucidate the truth in the case, even to the destruction of the document in question, is allowed, the Court, as a matter of precaution, being first supplied with a certified copy of the same.

"The most obvious argument to be urged against allowing a chemical test to be made on a will, and one that was suggested by the court on the argument of this motion, is that, inasmuch as the paper may be the subject of future controversy in this or some other tribunal, future litigants should not be prejudiced by any alteration or manipulation of the instrument. I do not think, however, that this objection is sound. Take an extreme case, of permitting a sufficient amount of the ink (which the affidavit of the expert shows to be but infinitesimal) for the purpose of chemical examination; the form of the letter would remain upon the paper; if not, the form and appearance of the entire signature might, as a preliminary precaution, be preserved by photography. The portion of the signature remaining would afford ample material for future experiments and investigations in subsequent proceedings wherein it might be deemed advisable to take that course.

"Because the subject matter of the controversy may be litigated hereafter should not deprive parties in the proceeding of any rights which they would otherwise have. They certainly are entitled to all rights in this proceeding that the parties to any future proceedings would have. Besides, all the parties whose presence would be necessary to an adjudication in, for example, an ejectment proceeding, are (or their privies are) parties here. It certainly cannot be that the law, seeking the truth, will not avail itself of this scientific method of ascertaining the genuineness of the instrument because of some problematical effect upon the rights or opportunities of parties to future litigations respecting the same instrument. The possibilities of litigation over a will are almost infinite, and if such a rule should obtain this important channel of investigation would be closed. Suppose the same objection were raised to the first action of ejectment which might be brought, it might then with the same force be urged that parties to some future ejectment suit would be prejudiced by a chemical test of the ink used in the will, and so on ad infinitum.

"By not availing itself of this method of ascertaining the truth as to the character of the ink, the Court deprives itself of a species of evidence which amounts to practical demonstration.

"I can see no reason why the application should not be granted."

The order in part reads:

"It is ordered and directed that Charles H. Beckett, the special guardian aforesaid, be and he hereby is allowed permission to photograph the aforesaid paper writings described in said order to show cause, viz., one of the two parts of a triplicate Will of Thomas J. Monroe, deceased, dated February 10th, 1873, which were filed in the office of the Surrogate of the City and County of New York on or about the 9th day of May, 1889, and also the contested Will herein dated March 27th and June 1st, 1888, and to have the said paper writing, bearing date March 22d and June 1st, 1888, subjected to such chemical test or tests as shall disclose the nature of the composition of the ink and, if possible, the process or processes to which it has been subjected, if any.

"And it is further ordered and directed that such chemical test be applied to the ink or writing fluid on said alleged Will to the following specified portion, or any part of such portions, viz."

Specifications in minute detail follow, calling attention to the words and spaces which are permitted to be chemically tested, and then continues:

"And it is further ordered and directed that the said paper writings shall be photographed before any chemical tests are applied thereto.

"And it is further ordered and directed that such photographing and chemical tests be performed by David N. Carvalho, Esq., a proper and suitable person, at the places above indicated respectively, between the 10th and the 20th days of June, 1889, inclusive, in the presence of the parties in interest or their attorneys, upon at least two days' notice to all parties herein or their attorneys.

"And it is further ordered and directed that in the event of destruction or breaking of the negatives after such paper writings have been photographed, the said special guardian, upon similar notice, shall have leave to re-photograph the said paper writings, at the same place and by the said David N. Carvalho, between the 10th and 20th days of June, 1889, inclusive. "(Signed) RASTUS S. RANSOM, "Surrogate."

On the 19th of June, 1889, pursuant to the order of the court, the alleged will referred to was first photographed, and later in that day such places as had been designated in the order were chemically treated, as part of a series of experiments. The results obtained briefly summarized were as, follows: The instrument which purported to be a holographic will of Thomas J. Monroe the experiments showed conclusively to be not the case, as neither pen nor ink in the body writing portion or in the decedent's signature had ever touched the paper; the date and names of the witnesses thereon were written, however, with pen and ink. Furthermore, the experiments demonstrated beyond question that exclusive of its date and names of witnesses, that it was what is commonly known as a transfer taken from a gelatine pad (hektograph), a method of duplicating popularly in vogue at that time. The deduced facts in the matter being that Thomas J. Monroe had written his will in an aniline purple ink, to which he had appended his name, leaving blank spaces to be filled in for the date, names of witnesses, etc., and had transferred the same to a hektograph, from which he had taken a number of duplicate facsimile copies, and at some other time had filled in the blank spaces by ordinary methods and to which, at his request, the names of the witnesses had been written with a pen and ink. In the trial which followed the surrogate declined to sustain the allegation of the proponents that the alleged signature was the original writing of Thomas J. Monroe, or indeed of any person. The will was not admitted to probate.

Experiments, both in open court or during its sessions in the testing of ink and paper, microscopically and chemically, are of frequent occurrence, and many contests involving enormous interests have been more or less decided as the result of them.

The contest of the alleged will of George P. Gordon, tried before the late Chancellor McGill of New Jersey in 1891, illustrates in a remarkable degree just how certain are the results of investigations of this character. The chancellor's decision, after listening to testimony for many weeks, was in effect to declare the will a forgery, largely because of the fact that the premise on which it rested was a so-called draft, from which it was sworn it had been copied. The ink on this draft it was proved could not have had an existence. until many years after the date of the forged will.

The decedent, who died in 1878, was the inventor of a famous printing press, and left a large fortune.

A will offered for probate soon after the death of Gordon was not probated, owing to the discovery that the witnesses had not signed it in each other's presence. The principal beneficiaries, however, under that will, the widow and daughter of Gordon, agreed to a division of the estate which was satisfactory to the other heirs at law, and the matter apparently was settled.

But a retired lawyer named Henry C. Adams began in 1879, a year after Gordon's death, to endeavor to obtain the assistance of some heirs at law in an enterprise which was finally ended only when Chancellor McGill's decision was rendered.

In 1868 Adams lived with his father and brothers on a farm, near Rahway, N. J., adjoining the Gordon place. The two men became well acquainted through their common interest in music. Adams called upon A. Sidney Doane, a nephew of Gordon, and told him that Gordon had made a will in 1868 which might be found or if lost, established by means of a draft of it which he (Adams) had retained. Mr. Doane refused to act upon this proposition. Then Adams presented the matter to Guthbert O. Gordon, a brother to George P. Gordon. He declined to consider the proposed search for a new will. Adams then wrote to Guthbert Gordon, Jr., cautioning him to say nothing to any one, but to come and see him. Guthbert Gordon, Jr., declined to accept Adams's invitation for a secret conference. Adams did not write or communicate with the widow or daughter of George P. Gordon, or with any of the officials or other persons who dealt with the estate. Finding that the heirs at law were satisfied with the arrangement of the estate under Gordon's daughter's management, he gave up his efforts at that time.

In 1890 Mary Agnes Gordon, the daughter, died in Paris, and remittances from her ceasing and her will not being satisfactory to those who had been receiving them from her, another contest was begun. This caused a renewal of Adams's activity. In 1890 he wrote to Messrs. Black & King, a firm of lawyers who represented the contestants of Mary Agnes Gordon's will. Adams's letter to the law firm contained this expression:

"If one of you will come over here on Sunday morning, bringing no brass band, fife or drums, I will tell you something worth knowing."

Mr. King visited Adams, who was then living at Orange, N. J., and was told by him that Mr. Gordon had executed a will in 1868 which he (Adams) had drawn at Gordon's instance, and that he had retained a corrected draft from which the will itself had been copied. He also told King that the original will after its execution had been left with his father, and that it must be at his father's homestead near Rahway, where he would try to find it. A few days later he wrote to Black & King that the will had been found, and the next day went with the lawyers to Rahway and identified the package found by his brother Edward Adams, who occupied the Rahway farm, as that which contained the will. The package, unopened, was taken to a safe deposit company and the original draft was deposited with the secretary of state. The alleged will, which Chancellor McGill pronounced a forgery when finally opened in the preliminary probate proceedings, was found to be a very long and complicated document, written on blue paper in black ink. The draft, which was on white paper, was also written in the main in black ink, but a copious quantity of red ink had been used in interlineations. The significant paragraph of the new will was a direction to his heirs to purchase, if the testator had not succeeded in doing so before his death, the Henry Adams farm for $32,000. Minute directions were given to insure the purchase, but no lower price than $32,000 was mentioned. Commenting upon this Chancellor McGill's remarks:

"It is also to be here noted that the Adams farm is now scarcely worth one-third the price for which it is directed to be purchased."

Continuing the court says:

"The only living person who professes to have had knowledge of this disputed paper prior to November, 1890, is Henry C. Adams. He most clearly and positively testified that he drew the disputed paper at the instance of Mr. Gordon. He produced a draft from which he said it was copied. . . . I have already stated that Mr. Adams testified most positively when the draft of the disputed paper was offered in evidence that it was the identical document from which the will of 1868 had been copied, and it is to be remembered that the interlineations in that draft are almost all made with red ink, and that Mr. Adams testified that those interlineations existed when the will was copied from the draft. With a view to testing the truth of this testimony the contestants submitted the draft to scientific experts, who pronounced the red ink to be a product of eosine, a substance invented by a German chemist named Caro in the year 1874, and after that time imported to this country. At first it was sold for $125 a pound, and was so expensive it could not be used commercially in the manufacture of ink. Afterwards the price was so greatly reduced that it became generally used in making red ink. It is distinguished by a peculiar bronze cast that is readily detected. It was recognized in the red ink interlineations in the draft of the disputed paper produced by Mr. Adams by a number of scientific gentlemen, among whom were some of the best known ink manufacturers in the country, and Mr. Carl Pickhardt, who first imported eosine. Upon further examination the witness, Adams, said he thought the draft produced to be the original until he saw the will on blue paper, and that then he was perplexed, but dismissed his doubt upon the suggestion of counsel, but afterward he thought upon the subject 'in the vigils of the night,' but by an unfortunate coincidence did not reach substantial doubt enough to correct his previous testimony until after the testimony concerning the character of the red ink he had used in interlining had been produced. . . . It is impossible to study this remarkable case at this point without grave doubts as to the truthfulness of Mr. Adams, and indeed as to the frankness with which the case was produced in court in behalf of the proponents."

As to Adams as a witness, the court finally says:

"And as I read the confused answers of Mr. Adams and note his apparent misapprehension of questions that would tend to involve him, and note the apparent failure of his theretofore wonderfully clear and exact memory of the most trivial and unimportant details, I am inclined to reject the whole story as a fabrication that has been punctured and fallen to pieces. . . . I find it to be impossible to rely upon the testimony of Henry C. Adams. Excluding it the will is not proved. . . .

"I will deny probate, revoking that which I have heretofore granted in common form." * * * * * * *

In the attempt made to prove the alleged last will and testament of Stephen C. Dimon, deceased, chemistry was the all-determining factor in the most important branch of the case. The peculiar features of this remarkable and unique case are best described by presenting them with a brief history of the entire matter.

In 1884 Stephen C. Dimon of the city of New York made and executed a will, choosing as legatee and executrix a Mrs. Martha Keery. The will he intrusted to the custody of his counsel. It appeared. that some time during the following year his attorney transferred this will from its resting place in a desk drawer to a new safe and recalled having seen its envelope a year later, but said he never saw the will thereafter.

In 1893 Mr. Dimon died. No will being produced, his brother took, out letters of administration. Whereupon Mrs. Martha Keery commenced a suit against the brother and the next of kin he represented, in an effort to obtain the dead man's estate. She based her claim solely on the LOST will, the contents of which were recalled in the trial by Mr. Dimon's former counsel, who was also one of the witnesses to the lost will. During the course of the trial in the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice George L. Ingraham, Mrs. Keery's attorney produced a mutilated document which from its reading indicated that it had once been a will, though not the "lost" one. But the names of the legatee, executrix, testator, names of witnesses and their addresses were completely obliterated. The written portions still undisturbed showed it to be in the handwriting of Stephen C. Dimon. Mrs. Keery's story was that after the death of Mr. Dimon in going over an old coat formerly worn by him, she had found it in a side pocket and had given it to her counsel just as it came into her hands.

Its condition showed it to be considerably pocket- worn. The obliterations referred to represented huge blots of black ink covering a lot of scratches and making it impossible to decipher the under writing. Defendant's Counsel immediately requested that the document be turned over to an expert, to see what could be done with it. The judge granted the motion and adjourned the case for several days to await results.

Counsel on both sides joined in the selection of myself. Three days were occupied in its decipherment. The will occupied two sides of a full sheet of legal cap. The original ink which was employed in the writing of the will was of pale gray color. The first obliterations were a series of pen and ink scratches and marks which destroyed the writing. Not satisfied with them the operator had with a saturated piece of blotting paper, brushed over the scratches and as that ink was of good quality every mark of writing had disappeared in the jumble and blots. It so happened that three inks had been employed. The original ink, the ink used for scratching and the one employed to do the blotting. The three inks were happily mixtures containing different constituents, and so by utilizing the reagent of one which did not affect the other, gradually the encrusted upper inks were removed and later the original writing appeared sufficiently plain not only to be read but to identify it. Photographs made before and after the chemical experiments, permitted court and counsel to make their own comparisons during the giving of the testimony about it.

It permitted also the finding of the two witnesses who lived outside of the city and to learn many details from them as to Mr. Dimon's conduct in the matter.

The restored will showed that Mrs. Keery at its date (1891) was still in his mind, and its destruction by himself—that he had changed his mind.

Justice Ingraham completes his opinion in deciding the case as follows:

"In this case, however, the long time that elapsed between the time of the delivery of the will to Mr. Morgan and the death of the testator, the absence of my satisfactory proof of the existence of the will from the time it was delivered to Mr. Morgan to the time of the testator's death, and the fact that the testator made another will, making substantially the same disposition of the property, which he subsequently destroyed, all tend to cast a doubt upon the fact that the will was in existence at the time of the testator's death, and there is positively no evidence that it was ever fraudulently destroyed.

"I do not think the court is justified in diverting a large sum of money from those legally entitled to it, by allowing, a lost will to be proved, except upon the clearest and most satisfactory evidence of the existence of the will at the time of the testator's death. And the testimony in this case falls short of what I consider necessary to establish such a will.

"There should be, therefore, judgment for the defendants with costs." * * * * * * *

A case of considerable interest was tried before Hon. Clifford D. Gregory in the month of March, 1899, in the city of Albany, New York. It was entitled the "People of the State of New York against Margaret E. Cody," as charged with the crime of blackmail, in the sending of a letter to Mr. George J. Gould, in which she threatened to divulge certain information which she claimed to possess about his dead father, Jay Gould. The character of this information was such that if true it meant that Jay Gould and his wife had lived in bigamous relations during a great number of years preceding their death and hence also affected the legitimacy of the entire Gould family. Mrs. Cody asserted that Jay Gould was married to a Mrs. Angel some time in 1853, and that as a result of that "lawful" marriage she gave birth to a daughter, a Mrs. Pierce, who was still alive and living somewhere in the west. As Mrs. Cody offered to sell or secrete the information which she said she possessed for a consideration, Mr. George J. Gould and his sister, Miss Helen Gould, instantly determined that it could be nothing else than a clear case of an attempt at blackmail, which falsely impugned the reputations of their dead parents. They instituted criminal proceedings against Mrs. Cody, charging that Mrs. Cody when she wrote the letter well knew that her claim that his father had been married to Mrs. Angel and that Mrs. Pierce was their daughter, was absolutely false. Two trials followed, the first in 1898 in which the jury disagreed, and a second one in 1899 which lasted over a week. It was in the second trial that chemical tests on a certain entry in a church record in the presence of the jury were made, which showed conclusively that ancient writing of another character than that which had been substituted was still existent beneath the writing which was apparent to the naked eye.

The following are excerpts of the judge's charge to the jury:

"I wish to invite your attention, for a few moments, to the baptismal certificate. You have had produced here before you the original baptismal record of the church at Cooperville. It has been substantially admitted, in the arguments of this case, that there has been a change made in this certificate. I do not think that the District Attorney claims that there is any evidence that Mrs. Cody herself changed this record; there is no claim, as I understand it, made by the prosecuting officer that she went there and obtained this book, and with her own hand changed this record; but he asks you to infer and find from the evidence that has been given, that she was a party to this change, that she was privy to this change, and that knowing that fact she had guilty knowledge when she wrote the letter upon which the indictment is based.

"You will remember that Mr. Carvalho, the expert in handwriting, was placed upon the stand; and he has testified in your presence as to his qualifications in determining disputed handwritings, and what his experience has been during a long series of years. He tells you that he has examined this record, and that there is no question but some of the words have been erased and others substituted in their places. He tells you that the words 'Jay Goulds' were not the original words in the certificate, or if they were, the present 'Jay Goulds,' as they appear in the certificate, have been forged; that the words 'Mary S. Brown,' the 'sex mois,' the French words for six months, and other changes which he has described to you are forgeries.

"I shall submit to you, as a question of fact, whether or not Mrs. Cody had any knowledge or took any part, or authorized or connived at any of the changes made in this certificate. I do not say that she did; I leave it to you to say, from the evidence in this case, whether your minds are convinced that she had any part or parcel, or undertook in any way to accomplish the changes which have been made in this baptismal record. And if you find as matter of fact that she had such knowledge at the time this letter was written; if you find as matter of fact she had this information given to her by Mrs. Angel, then I leave it to you to say whether she had such knowledge, such guilty knowledge, as should prevent her, if acting honestly, from writing a letter such as has been described here and contained in the indictment."

The jury brought in a verdict of guilty.

In the trial of the People v. David L. Kellam (1895), who was charged with altering the dates of three notes for $6,000 each, the contention of the prosecution was that the dates of the notes had been changed by chemicals, and with the consent of the defense a reagent was applied to the suspected places and the original dates restored. The verdict of the jury was guilty.

In the Holt Will case, tried in Washington, D. C., in the month of June, 1896, great stress was laid on the fact of the difference in the admixture of inks found on letters contemporaneous with the date of the will, and it was asserted also that the ink with which the will was written was not in existence at the time it was alleged to have been made, June 14, 1873, and probably not earlier than ten years later. Furthermore, that it was a habit of Judge Holt up to the time of his death, which habit was illustrated in his writings and correspondence to "sand" his writing. The jury decided the will was a forgery.

Another famous case in which the scientific testimony about ink and pencil writing must have assisted the court in arriving at a conclusion was in the trial of the famous Tighe will contest, tried before Hon. Frank T. Fitzgerald, one of the present surrogates of the county of New York. The story of this case is incorporated in the opinion which is cited in part:

"Hon. Frank T. Fitzgerald, Surrogate of the county of New York:

"That Richard Tighe died on the 6th day of May, 1896, at No. 32 Union Square, in the city and county of New York, where he had lived for fifty years prior to his death, and was at the time of his death over ninety years.

"That the testator, on or about the 27th day of March, 1884, in the presence of the attesting witnesses, duly signed the instrument in writing, and duly published and declared the same to be his last will and testament, and requested said witnesses to witness the same, and pursuant to such request said attesting witnesses did subscribe said will as attesting witnesses. That at the time said Richard Tighe so signed, published and declared the said instrument to be his last will and testament, the said Richard Tighe was in all respects competent to execute the same, and was not under any restraint or undue influence. That the said instrument, so signed, published and declared by testator was and consisted of the identical sheets of paper and the identical writing now appearing upon the same as to all except pencil writing; the testator did not publish or declare the marks, words or figures written in or upon said instrument in pencil to be a part of his last will and testament, and it is not found that such marks, words or figures were upon said instrument at the time when said instrument was so published and declared to be the last will and testament of the testator. That the said last will and testament is written consecutively upon two sheets of legal cap paper.

"That the said last will and testament was originally prepared with blank spaces left for the insertion of the numbers of shares intended to be bequeathed and devised to the various beneficiaries named therein, and as so prepared was in the hand-writing of Caroline S. Tighe, the wife of testator, and that at some subsequent time and before the execution of the said instrument by the said Richard Tighe, the blank spaces hereinafter referred to as filled in in ink, were filled in by or under the direction of the testator. Upon said instrument as offered for probate there appears in the blanks originally left thereon, in some instances, pencil writings superimposed over other pencil writings, which have been either wholly or partially erased, and in other instances ink writing different from the body of the instrument in the material employed, appearing over pencil writings wholly or partially obliterated. . .

"That the said words written in ink filling such blanks as aforesaid expressed the final determination of the testator with regard to the beneficiaries to whom the same applied; and that the words and figures written in pencil filling such blanks as aforesaid were written only deliberately and tentatively and that as to those words and figures the testator had not at the time when he executed, published or declared said instrument to be his last will and testament determined as to whom or in what proportions he would give the several shares of his estate and property covered by said words and figures, but the testator attempted and intended to reserve to himself the power of making disposition of said shares thereafter, and intended the final disposition thereof to be in ink writing. . . ."



CHAPTER XXIV.

CHEMICO-LEGAL INK (CONTINUED).

FAMOUS CASE OF CRITTEN V. CHEMICAL NATIONAL BANK—STORY OF THE CASE INCLUDED IN THE OPINION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS AS WRITTEN BY JUSTICE EDGAR M. CULLEN—THE PINKERTON CASE OF "BECKER"—STORY OF HOW HE SECURED $20,000 THROUGH THE ALTERATION OF A $12 CHECK—BECKER'S COMMENTS ABOUT HIMSELF—A CRITICISM OF BECKER AND HIS WORK—NAMES OF SOME CASES IN WHICH CHEMICAL EVIDENCE WAS PRESENTED TO COURTS AND JURIES.

THE books contain no clearer or more forcible exposition of "Chemico-legal" ink, in its relationship to facts adduced from illustrated scientific testimony, than is to be found in the final opinion written by that eminent jurist Hon. Edgar M. Cullen on behalf of the majority of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, in the case of De Frees Critten v. The Chemical National Bank. It was the author's privilege to be the expert employed in the lower court about whose testimony Judge Cullen remarks (N. Y. Rep., 171, p. 223) "The alteration of the checks by Davis was established beyond contradiction," and again, p. 227, "The skill of the criminal has kept pace with the advance in honest arts and a forgery may be made so skillfully as to deceive not only the bank but the drawer of the check as to the genuineness of his own signature." The main facts are included in the portion of the opinion cited:

"The plaintiffs kept a large and active account with the defendant, and this action is to recover an alleged balance of a deposit due to them from the bank. The plaintiffs had in their employ a clerk named Davis. It was the duty of Davis to fill up the checks which it might be necessary for the plaintiffs to give in the course of business, to make corresponding entries in the stubs of the check book and present the checks so prepared to Mr. Critten, one of the plaintiffs, for signature, together with the bills in payment of which they were drawn. After signing a check Critten would place it and the bill in an envelope addressed to the proper party, seal the envelope and put it in the mailing drawer. During the period from September, 1897, to October, 1899, in twenty-four separate instances Davis abstracted one of the envelopes from the mailing drawer, opened it, obliterated by acids the name of the payee and the amount specified in the check, then made the check payable to cash and raised its amount, in the majority of cases, by the sum of $100. He would draw the money on the check so altered from the defendant bank, pay the bill for which the check was drawn in cash and appropriate the excess. On one occasion Davis did not collect the altered check from the defendant, but deposited it to his own credit in another bank. When a check was presented to Critten for signature the number of dollars for which it was drawn would be cut in the check by a punching instrument. When Davis altered a check he would punch a new figure in front of those already appearing in the check. The checks so altered by Davis were charged to the account of the plaintiff s, which was balanced every two months and the vouchers returned to them from the bank. To Davis himself the plaintiffs, as a rule, intrusted the verification of the bank balance. This work having in the absence of Davis been committed to another person, the forgeries were discovered and Davis was arrested and punished. It is the amount of these forged checks, over and above the sums for which they were originally drawn, that this action is brought to recover. The defendant pleaded payment and charged negligence on plaintiff's part, both in the manner in which the checks were drawn and in the failure to discover the forgeries when the pass book was balanced and the vouchers surrendered. On the trial the alteration of the checks by Davis was established beyond contradiction and the substantial issue litigated was that of the plaintiff's negligence. The referee rendered a short decision in favor of the plaintiffs in which he states as the ground of his decision that the plaintiffs were not negligent either in signing the checks as drawn by Davis or in failing to discover the forgeries at an earlier date than that at which they were made known to them.

"The relation existing between a bank and a depositor being that of debtor and creditor, the bank can justify a payment on the depositor's account only upon the actual direction of the depositor. 'The question arising on such paper (checks) between drawee and drawer, however, always relate to what the one has authorized the other to do. They are not questions of negligence or of liability to parties upon commercial paper, but are those of authority solely. The question of negligence cannot arise unless the depositor has in drawing his cheek left blanks unfilled, or by some affirmative act of negligence has facilitated the commission of a fraud by those into whose hands the check may come.' (Crawford v. West Side Bank, 100 N. Y. 50.) Therefore, when the fraudulent alteration of the checks was proved, the liability of the bank for their amount was made out and it was incumbent upon the defendant to establish affirmatively negligence on the plaintiff's part to relieve it from the consequences of its fault or misfortune in paying forged orders. Now, while the drawer of a check may be liable where he draws the instrument ill such ill incomplete state as to facilitate or invite fraudulent alterations, it is not the law that he is bound so to prepare the cheek that nobody else call successfully tamper with it. (Societe Generale v. Metropolitan Bank, 27 L. T. [N. S.] 849; Belknap v. National Bank of North America, 100 Mass. 380) In the present case the fraudulent alteration of the checks was not merely in the perforation of the additional figure, but in the obliteration of the written name of the payee and the substitution therefor of the word 'Cash.' Against this latter change of the instrument the plaintiffs could not have been expected to guard, and without that alteration it would have no way profited the criminal to raise the amount. . . ."

A Pinkerton case of international repute, best known as the "Becker" case, included the successful "raising" of a check by chemical means from $12 to $22,000. The criminal author of this stupendous fraud was Charles Becker, "king of forgers," who as an all round imitator of any writing and manipulator of monetary instruments then stood at the head of his "profession." Arrested and taken to San Francisco he was brought to trial. Two of his "pals" turned state's evidence, and Becker was sentenced to a life term. Through an error on the part of the trial judge he secured a new trial on an appeal to the Supreme Court. The jury disagreed on a second trial, but on the third trial he was convicted. Becker pleaded for mercy, and as he was an old man and showed signs of physical break-down, the court was lenient with him. Seven years was his sentence.

After his incarceration in San Quetin prison, he described in one sentence how he had risen to the head of the craft of forgers. "A world of patience, a heap of time, and good inks,—that is the secret of my success in the profession."

On completing his sentence, his reply to the question, "What was the underlying motive which induced you to forge?" was one word, "Vanity!"

The detailed facts which follow are from the "American Banker:"

"On December 2, 1895, a smooth-speaking man, under the name of A. H. Dean, hired an office in the Chronicle building at San Francisco, under the guise of a merchant broker, paid a month's rent in advance, and on December 4 he went to the Bank of Nevada and opened an account with $2,500 cash, saying that his account would run from $2,000 to $30,000, and that he would want no accommodation. He manipulated the account so as to invite confidence, and on December 17 he deposited a check or draft of the Bank of Woodland, Cal., upon its correspondent, the Crocker- Woolworth Bank of San Francisco. The amount was paid to the credit of Dean, the check was sent through the clearing-house, and was paid by the Crocker- Woolworth Bank. The next day, the check having been cleared, Dean called and drew out $20,000, taking the cash in four bags of gold, the teller not having paper money convenient. He had a vehicle at the door, with his office boy inside as driver, and away he went. At the end of the month, when the Crocker-Woolworth Bank made returns to the Woodland Bank, it included the draft for $22,000. Here the fraud was discovered, and here the lesson to bankers of advising drafts received a new illustration. The Bank of Woodland had drawn no such draft, and the only one it had drawn which was not accounted for was one for twelve dollars, issued in favor of A. H. Holmes to an innocent- looking man, who, on December 9, called to ask how he could send twelve dollars to a distant friend, and whether it was better to send a money order or an express order. When he was told he could send it by bank draft, he seemed to have learned something new; supposed that he could not get a bank draft, and he took it, paying the fee. Here came back that innocent twelve-dollar draft, raised to $22,000, and on its way had cost somebody $20,000 in gold.

"The almost absolute perfection with which the draft had been forged had nearly defied the detection of even the microscope. In the body of the original $12 draft had been the words, 'Twelve ........ Dollars.' The forger, by the use of some chemical preparation, had erased the final letters 'lve' from the word 'twelve,' and had substituted the letters 'nty-two,' so that in place of the 'twelve,' is it appeared in the genuine draft, there was the word 'twenty-two' in the forged paper.

"In the space between the word 'twenty-two' and the word 'dollars' the forger inserted the word 'thousand,' so that in place of the draft reading 'twelve dollars,' as at first, it read 'twenty-two thousand dollars,' as changed.

"In the original $12 draft, the figures '1' and '2' and the character '$' had been punched so that the combination read '$12.' The forger had filled in these perforations with paper in such away that the part filled in looked exactly like the field of the paper. After having filled in the perforations, he had perforated the paper with the combination, '$22,000.'

"The dates, too, had been erased by the chemical process, and in their stead were dates which would make it appear that the paper bad been presented for payment within a reasonable length of time after it had been issued. The dates in the original draft, if left on the forged draft, would have been liable to arouse suspicion at the bank, for they would have shown that the holder had departed from custom in carrying, such a valuable paper more than a few days.

"That was the extent of the forgeries which had been made in the paper, the manner in which they had been made betrayed the hand of an expert forger. The interjected hand-writing was so nearly like that in the original paper that it took a great while to decide whether or not it was a forgery.

"In the places where letters had been erased by the use of chemicals the coloring of the paper had been restored, so that it was well-nigh impossible to detect a variance of the hue. It was the work of an artist, with pen, ink, chemicals, camel's hair brush, water colors, paper pulp and a perforating machine. Moreover the crime was eighteen days old, and the forger might be in Japan or on his way to Europe. The Protective Committee of the American Bankers' Association held a hurried consultation as soon as the news of the forgery reached New York, and orders were given to get this forger, regardless of expense—he was too dangerous a man to be at large. It was easier said than done; but the skill of the Pinkertons was aroused and the wires were made hot getting an accurate description of Dean from all who had seen him. Suspected bank criminals were shadowed night and day to see if they connected with any one answering the description, but patient, hard labor for nearly two months did not seem to promise much."

Not satisfied with their success in San Francisco these same bank workers began a series of operations in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. This information by chance reached the Pinkertons who laid a trap and captured two of the gang. Shortly afterward Becker on information furnished by them was also arrested, taken to California and after three separate trials as before stated, sent to San Quetin.

This triumph of the forger's art, I examined in the city of San Francisco and although it was not, the first time I had been brought into contact with the work of Becker, was compelled to admit that this particular specimen was almost perfect and more nearly so with a single exception than any other which had come under my observation. Becker was a sort of genius in the juggling of bank checks. He knew the values of ink and the correct chemical to affect them. His paper mill was his mouth, in which to manufacture specially prepared pulp to fill in punch holes, which when ironed over, made it most difficult to detect even with a magnifying glass. He was able also to imitate water marks and could reproduce the most intricate designs. He says he has reformed.

During the last twenty years quite a number of cases have been tried in New York City and vicinity in which the question of inks was an all important one. The titles of a few not already referred to are given. herewith: Lawless-Flemming, Albinger Will, Phelan- Press Publishing Co., Ryold, Kerr-Southwick, N. Y. Dredging Co., Thorless-Nernst, Gekouski, Perkins, Bedell forgeries, Storey, Lyddy, Clarke, Woods, Baker, Trefethen, Dupont-Dubos, Schooley, Humphrey, Dietz-Allen, Carter, and Rineard-Bowers.



CHAPTER XXV.

INK UTENSILS OF ANTIQUITY.

THE GRAVING TOOL PRECEDES THE PEN—CLASSIFICATION UNDER TWO HEADS, ONE WHICH SCRATCHED AND THE OTHER WHICH USED AN INK—THE STYLUS AND THE MATERIALS OF WHICH IT WAS COMPOSED—POETICALLY DESCRIBED—COMMENTS BY NOEL HUMPHREYS—RECAPITULATION OF VARIOUS DEVICES BY KNIGHT—BIBLICAL REFERENCES—ENGRAVED STONES AND OTHER MATERIALS THE EARLIEST KINDS OF RECORDS—WHEN THIN BRICKS WERE UTILIZED FOR INSCRIPTION PURPOSES—METHODS EMPLOYED BY THE CHINESE— HILPRECHT'S DISCOVERIES—THE DIAMOND AS A SCRATCHING INSTRUMENT—HISTORICAL INCIDENT WRITTEN WITH ONE—BIBLICAL MENTION ABOUT THE DIAMOND— WHEN IT BECAME POSSIBLE TO INTERPRET CHARACTER VALUES OF ANCIENT HIEROGLYPHICS—DISCOVERY OF THE ROSETTA STONE AND A DESCRIPTION OF IT—SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CHAMPOLLION AND DR. YOUNG WHO DECIPHERED IT—ITS CAPTURE BY THE ENGLISH AND PRESERVATION IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM—EMPLOYMENT OF THE REED PEN AND PENCIL- BRUSH—THE BRUSH PRECEDED THE REED PEN—THE PLACES WHERE THE REEDS GREW—COMMENTS BY VARIOUS WRITERS—METHOD OF FORMING THE REED INTO A PEN—CONTINUED EMPLOYMENT OF THEM IN THE FAR EAST—THE BRUSH STILL IN USE IN CHINA AND JAPAN—EARLIEST EXAMPLES OF REED PEN WRITING— WHEN THE QUILL WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR THE REED—REED PENS FOUND IN THE RUINS OF HERCULANEUM—ANECDOTE BY THE ABBE, HUC.

THE instruments of antiquity employed in the art of writing belong to two of the most distant epochs.

In the first period, inscriptions were engraved, carved or impressed with sharp instruments, and of patterns characteristic of a graving tool, chisel or other form which could be adapted to particular substances like stone, leaves, metal or ivory plates, wax or clay tablets, cylinders and prisms.

The ancient Assyrians even used knives or stamps for impressing their cuneiform writing upon cylinders or prisms of soft clay which were often glazed by subsequent bakings in kilns.

The other period was that in which written characters were made with liquids or paints of any kind or color. The liquids (inks) were used in connection with a pen manufactured from a reed (calamus), while the paints were "painted" on the various substances with a brush. The writing executed with both of these instruments was on materials like the bark of trees, cloth, skins, papyrus, vellum, etc.

The ancient as well as modern pens, though of many sorts and kinds, are to be classified under two general heads, those which scratch and those which use an ink.

There is no authority to dispute the generally conceded fact that the "scratching" instrument was the first one used. Its most popular form seems to have been the stylus or bodkin, which was made of a variety of materials, such as iron, ivory, bone, minerals or any other hard substance, which could be sufficiently sharpened at one end to indent the various materials employed in connection with its use. The other end was flattened for erasing marks made on wax and smoothing it. From it the Italian stilletto took its origin.

The stylus is best described in the following lines:

"My head is flat and smooth, but sharp my foot, And by man's hand to different uses put; For what my foot performs with art and care, My head makes void, such opposites they are."

Relative to the employment of marking instruments which belong to the most venerable antiquity, Noel Humphreys observes:

"Before the growth of wealth and luxury had taught nations to raise magnificent temples and stately palaces, whose walls the hieroglyphic sculptor covered with records of the pomp and pride of princes, more purely national memorials had found their place upon the native rock, the most convenient surfaces of which were smoothed for this purpose. Where no such rock existed in the situation required, a massive stone was raised by artificial means and the record, whether referring to a victory, a new boundary, or any other event of national interest was engraved upon it. Such memorials have been described by Hebrew writers as aumad or ammod, literally, the lips of the people, or, the words of the people, but actually meaning a pillar. Records in this form and the early name they bore account for the strange legends of mediaeval times referring to speaking stones—a name by which such monuments were probably still called long after time had effaced the speaking record, and the original purport of the defaced stone was forgotten. In semi-barbarous epochs, like the era which followed the partial extinction of Roman civilization, popular curiosity and superstition combined would seek to give a meaning to the name of such 'speaking stones,' and as an example of the legends which thus arose, the itinerarium cambriae of Geraldus may be cited, in which a stone is mentioned at St. David's as the 'speaking stone' (lech lavar) which was said to call out when a dead body was placed upon it. The most remarkable rock inscriptions still remaining are those of Assyria and Persia, but many national tablets of more recent date are still in existence. For the execution of such records and those of the palaces of Egypt and Assyria, some kind of steel point must have been used, as no softer substance would have served to engrave them in granitic and basaltic slabs with the sharpness they still exhibit, which proves that the art of hardening steel, long thought a comparatively modern invention, was known to the ancient people of Asia and Africa."

A list of the various devices of different countries, by which characters could be legibly portrayed with a scratching implement, is best recapitulated by Mr. Knight, who presents them in the following order:

"The tabula or wooden board smeared with wax, upon which a letter was written by a stylus.

"The Athenian scratched his vote upon a shell as did the lout when he voted to ostracize Aristides.

"The records of Ninevah were inscribed upon tablets of clay, which were then baked.

"The laws of Rome were engraved on brass and laid up in the Capitol.

"The decalogue was graven upon the tables of stone.

"The Egyptians used papyrus and granite.

"The Burmese, tablets of ivory and leaves.

"Pliny mentions sheets of lead, books of linen, and waxed tablets of wood.

"The Hebrews used linen and skins.

"The Persians, Mexicans, and North American Indians used skins.

"The Greeks, prepared skins called membrana.

"The people of Pergamus, parchment and vellum.

"The Hindoos, palm-leaves."

The written deeds of biblical time were kept in various styles of pottery (Jeremiah xxxii. 14). Handwriting on tiles was common in Egypt, Assyria and Palestine (Ezekiel iv. I). Such handwritings were on tablets of terra-cotta or common baked clay bricks. One of the kind was fashioned by inscribing directly with a "stylus" on the clay, before baking. Another, were "moulds" made from older inscriptions or duplicates from the first kind.

The Hebrew term sepher, translated into English means a "book," and some authorities claim it is derived from the same root as the Greek , a stone, which would seem to point to engraved stones as the earliest kinds of records. Indeed nearly all the passages in the Five Books of Moses, in which writing is mentioned, refer to records of this kind, or to tablets of lead or wood, occasionally described as coated with wax.

Long before the use of papyrus, or any like substance was known as a material for writing on, thin bricks were frequently utilized for such purposes. The Chinese wrote on slips of bamboo which had been previously scraped to be afterwards submitted to intense heat which so hardened them, that a graver would cut lines with the same facility, as could be accomplished on soft metal like lead. These bamboo tablets were joined together by means of cords made of bark and when folded formed a "book." Different nations adopted other modes in their preparation of surfaces to engrave on. Many original specimens have come down to us which present definite evidence of the variety of materials and methods employed in their manufacture.

Hilprecht, "Explorations in Bible Lands," 1903, mentions many discoveries of such specimens. He says that more than four thousand clay tablets were discovered during the excavations of 1889 and 1900.

These relics call attention only to a very few discoveries of this character. There were other explorers who preceded Hilprecht in this direction, and who with him have thus secured tangible evidence which fully confirms all that has been said about the employment of the most ancient of writing instruments, the "stylus."

The diamond is also to be classified under the head of "scratching implements" and many historical incidents are recorded of its use. One of the most interesting relates to Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth and to be found in Scott's "Kenilworth." Sir Walter, using his diamond ring, wrote on a pane of glass in her summer-house at Greenwich:

"Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall."

The maiden Queen adding the words:

"If thy mind fail thee, do not climb at all."

Biblical mention of the diamond, employed as a pen, is found in Jeremiah xvii. 1.

"The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond."

It has not always been possible to decipher and interpret the character values of the most ancient hieroglyphics or picture writings inscribed on bricks, stone and metal slabs, and the Egyptian monuments. The means to do so were furnished as the result of a very fortunate accident or "find."

A French artillery officer in 1799 while excavating the foundations for a fortification near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, found a curious black tablet of stone. On it were engraved three inscriptions, each of different characters and dialects.

The first of the three inscriptions was in hieroglyphic, then unreadable; the second in demotic or shorter script, also unknown, and the third in a living language pertaining to the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who reigned about 200 B. C.

This relic of antiquity is called the Rosetta stone.

Jean Francois Champollion, who with Dr. Thomas Young studied the intricacies of these writings, first established the fact that the three inscriptions on this stone were translations of each other. Dr. Young's investigations caused him to study the language included in the second inscription, and made his deductions, it is said, "by dint of thousands of scientific guesses, all but a few of which were eliminated by tests which he invented and applied; he at last discovered and put together the set of fundamental principles that govern the ancient writings."

Champollion, however, began at the bottom and having successfully translated the LIVING language, established a "key" or alphabet. Hence it became possible, although requiring some years, to solve the mystery of writings of 4000 or more years old.

Champollion pursued his discoveries so thoroughly in this direction as to be able to complete in 1829 an Egyptian vocabulary and grammar.

The Rosetta stone after remaining in the possession of the French for many years was captured by the English on the defeat of the French forces in Egypt and is now in the British museum.

As writing with liquid colors on papyrus or analogous materials which could be used in the form of rolls, gradually came into vogue, the calamus or reed pen, pencil brush (hair pencil), or the juncas, a pen formed from a kind of cane, were more or less employed.

The "calamus" followed the "brush," just as

phonographic writing which denotes arbitrary sounds or the language of symbols, came after the picture or ideographic writing.

The places where the calamus grew and the modes of preparing them are variously discussed by different ancient and modern writers. Some claim that the best reeds for pen purposes formerly grew near Memphis on the Nile, near Cnidus of Caria, in Asia Minor, and in Armenia. Those grown in Italy were estimated to have been of but poor quality. Chardin calls attention to a kind to be found, "in a large fen or tract of soggy land supplied with water by the river Helle, a place in Arabia formed by the united arms of the Euphrates and Tigris. They are cut in March, tied in bundles, laid six months in a manure heap, where they assume a beautiful color, mottled yellow and black." Tournefort saw them growing in the neighborhood of Teflis in Georgia. Miller describes the cane as "growing no higher than a man, the stem three or four lines in thickness and solid from one knot to another, excepting the central white pith." The incipient fermentation in the manure heap dries up the pith and hardens the cane. The pens were about the size of the largest swan's quills. They were cut and slit like a quill pen but with much larger nibs.

In the far East the calamus is still used, the best being gathered in the month of March, near Aurac, on the Persian Gulf, and still prepared after the old method of immersing them for about six months in fermenting manure which coats them with a sort of dark varnish and the darker their color the more they are prized.

The "brush" also holds its career of usefulness, more especially in China and Japan.

The earliest examples of reed pen writing are the ancient rolls of papyrus which have been found buried with the Egyptian dead. Some of these old relics of antiquity are claimed to have been prepared fully twenty centuries or more before the Christian era.

The "reed" pen for ink writing held almost undisputed sway until the sixth century after the Christian era, when the quill (penna) came into vogue.

Reed pens preserved in excellent condition were found in the ruins of Herculaneum.

"When he had finished, he dried the bamboo-pen on his hair, and replaced it behind his ear, saying, 'Yak pose' (That is well). 'Temou chu' (Rest in peace), we replied; and, after politely putting out our tongues, withdrew." Abbe Hue at Lha-Ssa.



CHAPTER XXVI.

INK UTENSILS (QUILL PEN STEEL PEN).

THE QUILL PEN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL AND FITTING OF ALL WRITING INSTRUMENTS—TENDENCY TO "WEAR" OUT—THE SOMETIMES AFFECTION FOR OLD PENS—DR. HOLLAND'S LINES ON THE PEN—SELECTION OF QUILLS TO BE MADE INTO PENS—METHOD OF PREPARING THEM—BYRON'S ESTIMATION OF HIS QUILL PEN—ITS INVENTION BEFORE THE SIXTH CENTURY UNCERTAIN— EMPLOYMENT OF THE REED AND QUILL PEN TOGETHER UNTIL THE TWELFTH CENTURY—WHEN THE STEEL PEN CAME INTO VOGUE—WHO WAS ITS INVENTOR—SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT IT—QUANTITY OF MATERIAL SIXTY YEARS AGO CONSUMED IN PEN MANUFACTURE—A FEW REMARKS ABOUT GOLD, FOUNTAIN AND STYLOGRAPHIC PENS—MORE STEEL USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PENS THAN IN THAT OF SWORDS AND GUNS—POETICAL LINES ABOUT THE PEN.

THE quills belonging to the feathers of birds seem to have been the most successful and fitting of all materials for pens, for, though steel and other metals are now used for this purpose to an immense extent, there is a power of adaptation in a quill pen which has never yet been equalled in metal. Quills, however, like other things, have a tendency to "wear out," and the trouble resulting from the necessity of frequently mending quill pens and a desire to write with more rapidity have been the main causes of the introduction of steel substitutes. A kind of affection has often been felt by an author or official, or their admirers, for the pen with which he has written any large or celebrated work or signed some important document; old worn-out pens, as well as new ones, have been preserved as memorials in connection with such matters, and Dr. Holland, who translated Pliny's "Natural History" in the sixteenth century, recorded an exploit connected with it in the following lines:

"With one sole pen I wrote this book, Made of a gray goose-quill: A pen it was when it I took A pen I leave it still."

The quills employed for pens were generally those of the goose, although the crow, the swan, and other birds yielded feathers which were occasionally available for this purpose. Each wing produced about five good quills, but the number thus yielded was so small that the geese reared in England could not furnish nearly enough for the demand, hence the importation of goose quills from the Continent was very large. The process surrounding the manufacture of a quill pen proves of considerable interest.

"The geese are plucked of their feathers three or four times a year, the first time for the sake both of the quills and the feathers, but the other times for the feathers only. The pen quills are generally taken from the ends of the wings. When plucked the quills are found to be covered with a membranous skin, resulting from a decay of a kind of sheath which had enveloped them; the interior vascular membrane, too, resulting from the decay of the vascular pith, adheres so strongly to the barrel of the quill as to be with difficulty separated, while, at the same time, the barrel itself is opaque, soft, and tough. To remove these various defects the quills undergo several processes. In the first instance, as a means of removing the membraneous skin, the quills are plunged into heated sand, the high temperature of which causes the external skin of the barrel to crack and peel off, and the internal membrane to shrivel up. The outer membrane is then scraped off with a sharp instrument, while the inner membrane remains in a state to be easily detached. For the finest quills the heating is repeated two or three times. The heat of the sand, by consuming or drying up the natural moisture of the barrel, renders it harder and more transparent. In order to give the barrel a yellow color, and a tendency to split more readily and clearly, it is dipped in weak nitric acid, but this was considered to render the quill more brittle and less durable, and was therefore a sacrifice of utility for the sake of appearance."

"Oh! nature's noblest gift—my gray goose quill! Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men!" BYRON.

To locate an exact period for the invention of the quill pen is impossible. It could hardly have been in use before the fourth century, probably not earlier than two centuries later. Some writers have assumed that it was employed by the Romans, but as no distinct mention is made of them by early classical authors we must accept the only information at hand.

Isidore (died A. D. 636) and contemporaries state that the quills of birds came into use as pens only in the sixth century. It is also known, St. Brovverus being the authority, that in his time (seventh century) the calamus or reed pen and the quill pen were employed together, the calamus being used in the writing of the uncial (inch) letters and capitals, and the quill for smaller letters. Mention is also made by many writers of the five centuries which followed Isidore's time of the calamus, indicating that notwithstanding it had been superseded by the quill it was still a favorite writing implement in some places.

The use of the "steel pen" did not spring immediately from that of the "quill pen." There were several intermediate stages adopted before the fitness of steel for this purpose was sufficiently known, From about 1800 to 1835 the number of proposed substitutes for the quill pen was very considerable. Horn pens, tortoise-shell pens, nibs of diamond or ruby imbedded in tortoise shell, nibs of ruby set in fine gold, nibs of rhodium and of iridium imbedded in gold,— all have been adopted at different times, but most of them have been found too costly for general adoption. Steel is proved to be sufficiently elastic and durable to form very good pens, and the ingenuity of manufacturers has been exerted to give to such pens as many as possible of the good qualities possessed by the quill pen.

The original flexible iron pen of modern times was an experimental affair probably, being mentioned by Chamberlayne as far back as 1685.

The first steel pens in regular use were made by Wise, in London, in 1803, and for many years thereafter.

His pen was made with a barrel, by which it was slipped upon a straight handle. In its portable form it was mounted in a bone case for the pocket. Prejudice, however, was strong against them, and up to 1835 or thereabouts quills maintained their full sway, and much later among the old-fashioned folks. To him, however, is due the credit of being the inventor of the modern steel pen.

It has been the thought of some people that Gillott was the progenitor of the steel pen, but he was not. Arnoux, a French mechanic, made metallic pens with side slits in 1750. Samuel Harrison, an Englishman, made a steel pen for Dr. Priestly in 1780. Peregrine Williamson, a native of New York, while engaged as a jeweler in the city of Baltimore, made steel pens in 1800.

Perry's first pens were of steel, rolled from wire, the material costing seven shillings a pound. Five shillings each was paid the workman for making them; this was afterward reduced to thirty-six shillings per gross, which price was continued for several years.

It was Joseph Gillott, however, originally a Sheffield cutler, and afterwards a workman in light steel articles, as buckles, chains, and other articles of that class, who in 1822 gave impulse to the steel-pen manufacture. Previous to his entering the business the pens were cut out with shears and finished with the file. Gillott adapted the stamping press to the requirements of the manufacture, as cutting out the blanks, forming the slits, bending the metal, and impressing the maker's name on the pens. He also devised improved modes of preparing the metal for the action of the press, tempering, cleansing, and polishing, and, in short, many little details of manufacture necessary to give them the required flexibility to enable them to compete with the quill pen. One great difficulty to be overcome was their extreme hardness and stiffness; this was effected by making slits at the side in addition to the central one, which had previously been solely used. A further improvement, that of cross grinding the points, was subsequently adopted. The first gross of pens with three slits was sold for seven pounds. In 1830 the price was $2.00; in 1832, $1.50; in 1861, 12 cents, and a common variety for 4 cents a gross. About 9,300 tons of steel are annually consumed, the number of pens produced in England alone being about 8,000,000,000.

Bramah patented quill nibs made by splitting quills and cutting the semicylinders into sections which were shaped into pens and adapted to be placed in a holder. These were, perhaps, the first nibs, the progenitors of a host of steel, gold, and other pens.

Hawkins and Mordan, in 1823, made nibs of horn and tortoise shell, instead of quill. The tortoise shell being softened, points of ruby and diamond were imbedded. Metallic points were also cemented to the shell nibs.

Doughty, about 1825, made gold pens with ruby points.

Gold pens with rhodium or iridium points were introduced soon afterwards.

Mordan's oblique pen, English patent, 1831, was designed to present the nibs in the right direction while preserving the customary positions of the pen and hand.

The fountain pen carries a supply of ink, fed gradually to the point of the instrument. The first made by Scheffer was introduced about 1835 by Mordan. The pressure of the thumb on a stud in a holder caused a continuous supply of ink to flow from the reservoir to the pen.

The "stylographic" is a reservoir pen shaped like a pencil, in which the flow of ink is regulated by pressure of a style or fine needle with blunt point upon the paper. It must be held in a vertical position. All marks made with one, both up and down strokes, are equal in width.

Gold pens are now usually tipped with iridium, making what are commonly known as diamond points.

"The iridium for this purpose is found in small grains of platinum, slightly alloyed with this latter metal. The gold for pens is alloyed with silver to about sixteen carats fineness, rolled into thin strips, from which the blanks are struck. The under side of the point is notched by a small circular saw to receive the iridium point, which is selected with the aid of a microscope. A flux of borax and a blowpipe secure it to its place. The point is then ground on a copper wheel of emery. The pen-blank is next rolled to the requisite thinness by the means of rollers especially adapted for the purpose, and tempered by blows from a hammer. It is then trimmed around the edges, stamped, and formed in a press. The slit is next cut through the solid iridium point by means of a thin copper wheel fed with fine emery, and a saw extends the aperture along the pen itself. The inside edges of the slit are smoothed and polished by the emery wheel; burnishing and hammering produce the proper degree of elasticity."

It is asserted that more steel is used in the manufacture of pens than in all the swords and guns in the world. This fact partly verifies the old saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword."

"Three things bear mighty sway with men, The Sword, the Sceptre, and the Pen; Who can the least of these command, In the first rank of Fame will stand."



CHAPTER XXVII.

SUBSTITUTES FOR INK UTENSILS ("LEAD" AND OTHER PENCILS).

"BLACK-LEAD" PENCILS AN EXCELLENT PEN SUBSTITUTE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS—ITS COMPOSITION— "BLACK-LEAD" CONTAINS NO LEAD, HENCE THE NAME IS MISAPPLIED—THE DISCOVERY OF ITS PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF SUPPLY AN ACCIDENT—A DESCRIPTION OF HOW IT IS MINED—TREATMENT BEFORE BEING INTRODUCED INTO THE GROOVED WOOD—USE OF RED AND BLACK CHALK PENCILS IN GERMANY, 1450—THEIR USE IN MEXICO IN EARLY TIMES—WHO MANUFACTURES LEAD PENCILS—EMPLOYMENT OF THE COMPOSITION OF LEAD AND TIN IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES—BAVARIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1816 A MANUFACTURER OF LEAD PENCILS.

THE black-lead pencil, under many circumstances, is a very useful substitute for the pen, in that it requires no liquid ink for marking the characters on paper or other materials. The peculiar substance which fills the central channel of the stick of cedar has the property of marking when it touches paper; and, as the marks thus made are susceptible to easy removal, a pencil of this kind is available for purposes which would not be answered by the use of pen and ink.

The substance misnamed "black-lead" contains NO LEAD and is a carburet of iron, being composed of carbon and iron. It generally occurs in Mountain districts, in small kidney-shaped pieces, varying in size from that of a pea upwards, which are interspersed among various strata, and is met with in different parts of the world.

Its principal source of supply until about 1845, when it became exhausted, was the Borrowdale mine in Cumberland, England, which was discovered in 1564. About 1852 a number of mines were opened containing this substance in Siberia and from which place the best products are now obtained.

The accidental discovery of this mineral at Borrowdale was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth who made many inquiries about it. The name of this mineral was locally known as wad (graphite). So valuable was it regarded that it commanded a very high price, and this price acted as in inducement to the workmen and others to pilfer pieces from the mine. For a number of years scenes of great commotion took place, arising out of these depredations; and the result was that the proprietors adopted such stringent rules that hardly anything was known of the internal economy of the mine till about sixty years ago, when Mr. Parkes gave a description of it, from which I may condense a few particulars.

The mine is in the midst of a mountain about two thousand feet high, which rises at in angle of about 45 degrees; and, as that part of the mine which has been worked during the last century is near the middle of the mountain, the present entrance is about a thousand feet from the summit. The opening by which the workmen enter descends by a flight of steps; and in order to guard the treasure within, the proprietors have erected a strong brick building of four rooms, one of which is immediately over the entrance into the mine. This entrance is secured by a trap-door, and the room connected with it serves as a dressing-room for the men when they enter and leave the mine. The men work in gangs, which relieve each other every six hours, and when the hour of relief comes, a steward or foreman attends the dressing- room to see the men change their dresses as they come up one by one out of the mine. The clothes are examined by the steward to see that no black-lead is concealed in them; and when the men have dressed they leave the mine, making room for another gang, who change their clothes, enter the mine, and are fastened in for six hours. In one of the four rooms of which the house consists there is a table, at which men are employed in sorting and dressing the mineral. This is necessary, because it is usually divided into two qualities, the finest of which have generally pieces of iron- ore or other impurity attached to them, which must be dressed off. These men, who are strictly watched while at work, put the dressed black-lead into casks holding about one hundred-weight each, in which state it leaves the mine. The casks are conveyed down the side of the mountain in a curious manner. Each cask is fixed upon a light sledge with two wheels, and a man, who is well used to the precipitous path, walks down in front of the sledge, taking care that it does not acquire momentum enough to overpower him. When the cask has been thus guided safely to the bottom, the man carries the sledge up hill upon his shoulders, and prepares for another descent.

Up to about the middle of the eighteenth century the mine was opened only once in seven years, the quantity taken out at each time of opening being such as was deemed sufficient to serve the market for seven years; but when, at a later period, it was found that the demand was increasing and the supply decreasing, it was deemed necessary to work the mine six or seven weeks every year. During the time of working, the mine is guarded night and day; and when a quantity sufficient for one year's consumption has been taken out, the mine is secured until the following year. Several hundred cartloads of rubbish are wheeled into the mine, so as to block up the entrance completely; and this rubbish acts as a dam to prevent the springs and land waters from flowing out, so that the mine gradually becomes flooded.

When the Year's mining is concluded, the barrels of black-lead are brought to market, and the mode of effecting the sales was described by Dr. Faraday some years ago to be as follows: A market is held on the first Monday of every month at a house in London, where the buyers, who are generally only seven or eight in number, examine each piece with a sharp instrument to ascertain its hardness, those which are too soft being rejected. The person who has the first choice pays 45s. per pound, the others 30s. But, as there is no addition made to the first quantity in the market, the residual portions are examined over and over again until they are exhausted. At one time the annual sale was said to amount to the value of L40,000 per annum, but it has been greatly reduced since.

A mode of applying manufacturing processes to the preparation of black-lead is described by Dr. Ure as being adopted in Paris. The mineral, being reduced to a fine powder, is mixed with very pure powdered clay, and the two are calcined in a crucible at a white heat; the proportion of clay employed is greater as the pencil is required to be harder, the average being equal parts of both. The ingredients are ground with a muller on a porphyry slab and then made into balls, which are preserved in a moist atmosphere in the form of paste. The paste is pressed into grooves cut in a smooth board, and another board, previously greased, is pressed down upon it. When the paste has had time to dry, the mould or grooved board is put into a moderately heated oven, by which the paste, now in the form of square pencils, shrinks sufficiently to fall out of the grooves. In order to give solidity to the pencils they are set upright in a crucible and surrounded with pounded charcoal, fine sand, or sifted ashes; the crucible, being covered, is exposed to a degree of heat proportionate to the hardness required in the pencils, the harder pencils requiring the higher degree of heat. Some of the pencils are shaped in a curious manner: models of the pencils, made of iron, are stuck upright upon an iron tray, having edges raised as high as the intended length of the pencils; and a metallic alloy, made of tin, lead, antimony and bismuth is poured into the sheet-iron tray. When the alloy has cooled, it is inverted and shaken off from the model-rods, so as to form a mass of metal perforated throughout with tubular cavities corresponding in size with the intended pencil pieces; the pencil paste is introduced by pressure into these cavities, and when nearly dry the pieces shrink sufficiently to be easily removed from the cavities.

The pencils just described are alike throughout all their thickness, but in the majority of English pencils there is a wooden holder to contain a narrow filament of black lead running down the middle. So long ago as the year 1618 this mode was adopted; for Sir John Pettus, who was deputy governor of the Borrowdale mine under Charles II, in his "Fleta Minor," while, speaking of black-lead says, that "Of late it is curiously formed into cases of deal or cedar and so sold as dry pencils, something more useful than pen and ink." In a general way modern black-lead pencils, are made by sawing cedar first into long planks, and then into smaller rods; grooves are cut out by means of a cutting machine moved by a fly- wheel to such a depth as will receive a small layer of black-lead; the pieces of the mineral are cut into thin slabs and then into rods the same size as the grooves, into which they are inserted; the two halves of the case are then glued together, and the whole is turned into a cylindrical form by means of a guage.

The kind of pencil called "crayon" is a mixture of some kind of earth with a coloring substance. The earth employed is sometimes chalk, and at other times pipe-clay, gypsum, starch-flour, or ochre. The coloring substance is yellow ochre, mineral yellow, chrome, red chalk, vermilion, indigo—indeed, any of the usual dry colors, according to the tint required. Besides the earth and the color, there is a gummy liquid required to combine them together; gum arabic, gum tragacanth, and in some cases oil, wax, or suet, are used as the third ingredient. The crayons here alluded to are employed rather for drawing than for writing, but they obviously belong to the class of pencils in their mode of action.

The ancients drew lines and letters with wooden styles, and afterward an alloy of lead and tin was used. Pliny refers to the use of lead for ruling lines on papyrus. La Moine cites a document of 1387 ruled with graphite. Slips of graphite in wooden sticks (pencils) are mentioned by Gesner, of Zurich, in 1565; he credits England with the production. They are doubtless the product of the Borrowdale mine, then lately discovered. In the early part of the seventeenth century black-lead pencils are distinctly described by several writers. They are noticed by Ambrosinus, 1648; spoken of by Pettus, in 1683, as inclosed in fir or cedar.

Red and black chalk pencils were used in Germany in 1450; in fact, fragments of chalk, charcoal, and shaped sticks of colored minerals had been in use since times previous to all historic mention.

When Cortez landed in Mexico, in 1520, he found the Aztecs using graphite crayons, which were probably made from a mineral found in Sonora.

The firm of A. W. Faber are the largest manufacturers of lead pencils in the world. They have compiled a history of this implement of handwriting which they have permitted me to use in the story which follows.

The lead pencil is an invention of modern times, and its introduction may deservedly be ranked with the large number of technical innovations in which more especially the last three centuries have been so rich; nor can it be denied that pencils have played an important part in the diffusion of arts and sciences and in facilitating study and intellectual intercourse.

To the classic ages and their art the pencil, and in general every application of lead as a writing material, was entirely unknown, and it was not till the advent of the middle ages that it began to be used for this purpose. This lead, i. e. metallic lead, however, was in no way equivalent to the graphite or black-lead of our pencils, which are only honored with the prefix of "lead," owing to the leaden color of the writing done with them.

Moreover, in those days, lead was used exclusively for ruling and in no way for writing or drawing; it was employed in the form of round, sharp-edged discs, similar to those which, it is said, were already used for the same purpose in ancient classic times. It is only with the development and growth of modern painting that traces of pencil-like drawings first begin to be met. At so early a period even as the fourteenth century, mention is made by the masters of that time, more especially by the brothers Van Eyck, and again in the fifteenth century by Menlink and others, of studies or compositions which were made with an instrument similar to a lead pencil, upon a paper with chalk prepared surface.

This type of drawing was commonly classed as "silver- style," a term, however, which was no doubt erroneous, as there could be no question of the use of pure silver in this connection.

In the same way it is also reported of the later mediaeval Italian artists that they drew their subjects in "silver-style," upon planished fig-tree wood, the surface of which had been prepared with the powder obtained from calcined bones,—a method, however, which seems only to have been employed in exceptional instances.

But in the fourteenth century, drawings were frequently done in Italy with pencils consisting of a mixture cast from lead and tin; these drawings could easily be erased with bread crumbs.

Petrarch's "Laura" was portrayed in this manner by one of his contemporaries, and the method was still in vogue in the days of Michael Angelo. From Italy these pencils subsequently found their way to Germany, but it is not apparent under what particular name. In Italy itself they were called "stili," the equivalent of the word stylus. At no time, however, do these varieties seem to have been the predominating material used for drawing purposes.

In conjunction with these, pens were used for writing and drawing, and at the zenith of the art period of those days black and red crayons were also used on a large scale. The Italians imported the best qualities of red crayons from Germany, the best black chalk being obtained from Spain.

Vasari writes of a certain sixteenth century artist, that he was equally skillful in handling the stylus or the pen, black chalk or red crayon.

It was this period which witnessed the discovery of plumbago, a mineral which was soon worked up into an entirely new material for writing and drawing,— the lead pencil.

This discovery, which was destined to confer such great benefits not only upon practical life, but also upon art, was made in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, for in the year 1564 the celebrated black-lead mines of Borrowdale, in Cumberland, were discovered. With the opening of this mine, the first material steps were taken to implant on English soil a lead pencil industry which in the course of time was to assume important dimensions.