Chapter 4

ERASURES, ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS

What Erasure Means--The English Law--What a Fraudulent Alteration Means--Altered or Erased Parts Considered--Memoranda of Alterations Should Always Accompany Paper Changed--How Added Words Should be Treated--How to Erase Words and Lines Without Creating Suspicion--Writing Over an Erasure--How to Determine Whether or Not Erasures or Alterations Have Been Made--Additions and Interlineations--What to Apply to the Suspected Document--The Alcohol Test Absolute--How to Tell which of Crossing Ink Lines Were Made First--Ink and Pencil Alterations and Erasures--Treating Paper to Determine Erasures, Alterations and Additions--Appearance of Paper Treated as Directed--Paper That Does Not Reveal Tampering--How Removal of Characters From a Paper is Affected--Easy Means of Detecting Erasures--Washing with Chemical Reagents--Restoration of Original Marks--What Erasure on Paper Exhibits--Erasure in Parchments--Identifying Typewritten Matter--Immaterial Alterations--Altering Words in an Instrument--Alterations and Additions Are Immaterial When Interests of Parties Are Not Changed or Affected--Erasure of Words in an Instrument