At the conclusion of the Crown case it was, one may think, open to the learned judge to hold that so far as medium of proof might go as distinguished from relevancy, a foundation had been laid for treating the document as admissible against the prisoner. Section 30 of the Evidence Act, 1929-1957, which is founded on s. 8 of Denman's Act, i.e. Criminal Procedure Act, 1865 (28 and 29 Vict. c. 18) and on s. 27 of the Common Law Procedure Act, 1854 (17 and 18 Vict. c. 125) provides that a comparison of a disputed writing with any writing proved to the satisfaction of the judge to be genuine shall be permitted to be made by witnesses; and such writings and the evidence of the witnesses respecting the same may be submitted to the Court as evidence of the genuineness or otherwise of the writing in dispute. Blackburn J. seems at one time to have considered that the provision could not be used without the assistance of witnesses, expert or otherwise, as to the handwriting (Reg. v. Harvey [1] ) but this is not now regarded as correct. What the provision made possible was the use of a writing inadmissible in evidence except for the sole purpose of providing a standard of comparison of handwriting. That formerly could not be done. See Doe d. Mudd v. Suckermore [2] ; Doe d. Perry v. Newton [3] ; Hughes v. Rogers [4] ; Doe d. Devine v. Wilson [5] . But after the adoption of these provisions, in a case of a disputed writing or writings, a writing not otherwise relevant to the issue became admissible for the purpose of providing a standard of comparison of handwriting. It was necessary that the writing so to be used as a standard should be properly proved to the satisfaction of the judge to be the handwriting of the party concerned. Clearly enough Exhibit N was admissible under the section as a standard of comparison for the purpose of determining whether the writing upon the two forms in respect of which the prisoner was charged was or was not his. So much was not disputed. It was, however, suggested that the three additional forms were not writings in dispute within the rule expressed by the provision and their authorship could not be established by comparison with Exhibit N; still less could a comparison be instituted between the five documents. But it is an error to treat the three additional documents as not writings in dispute. The prisoner by no means admitted them to be his and indeed he expressly denied that he had signed the name of Giovanni Cazzaro to any withdrawal form. As to the comparison of the five forms one with another, that would establish nothing against the prisoner if each and every one of the five were not brought into comparison with Exhibit N. A careful comparison of the three withdrawal forms of 3rd, 4th and 17th December respectively with Exhibit N, the document admitted as the genuine writing of the prisoner and for the purpose of supplying a standard of comparison suggests that it is a reasonable conclusion that they are all in the same handwriting. But that comparison the learned presiding judge never made for the purpose of admitting them in evidence against the prisoner. Suppose, however, that his Honour had made this comparison and had decided that he was warranted in treating the documents as sufficiently appearing to be connected with the prisoner to enable him to admit them in evidence against him, leaving it to the jury to decide the question whether they came from the prisoner. On that assumption, on what grounds of relevance were they admissible against the prisoner? The admission of the evidence as relevant is not dependent necessarily upon its probative force on the central issue, namely the issue whether the prisoner was the man who wrote and presented the two withdrawal forms dated 5th December and 10th December respectively, those the subject of the counts in the information. But it is plain that on the assumption that Cazzaro's denial that he withdrew the money was accepted, and obviously the jury did accept it, the crimes charged in the information formed two steps in a course of conduct on the part of the guilty person which could only be understood properly if the connected steps by which the transaction was made up were laid before the jury. Those steps were the theft of a pass book and passport and the withdrawal of the amount at deposit by the use of the passbook and withdrawal slips covering the whole amount. The withdrawals all took place between 3rd and 17th December 1958 and comprised the whole sum deposited. That means that the withdrawals covering the amount at credit within a period of fourteen days were obviously interconnected. Assuming that it was open to the judge to treat all five withdrawal forms as presumptively attributable to the prisoner because of the learned judge's view of the similarity of all five withdrawal forms or perhaps more precisely of the three the admissibility of which is now in question, it seems to have been open to the learned judge to admit them in evidence on this footing and submit them to the jury. The difficulty is, however, that it is not the way the matter was dealt with at the trial by his Honour. Of the logical hypotheses by which the five withdrawals might be explained, no doubt one is that Cazzaro himself was the man who made them and it would seem that it is this hypothesis that struck his Honour's mind as a real possibility and led him to present the case to the jury as he did in his charge to them. The hypothesis which the jury found to be the truth was simply that the identification of Wood was correct and the person was the prisoner. There were of course other hypotheses open, as for example that it was some other denizen of Nos. 14 and 16 Shannon Place or someone who did not reside there but knew all about those who did. Looking at the documents and comparing them with Exhibit N it does seem that the comparison affords prima facie reason for admitting them in evidence against the prisoner, it being for the jury to decide on the whole evidence whether their authorship should be ascribed to him. But except to give coherence and intelligence to what really was an entire transaction in relation to Cazzaro's bank account the additional three withdrawals were not really of probative strength in showing that he was the man.