| OCR Text |
Show j oo A NEW METHOD OF TRACKING CRIMINALS Tho way of the transgressor is hard. It became harder when tho llnger-prlnt' system of identillcatlon was officially adopted bv the police harder still when Dr. Galton discovered discov-ered a powder which instantly made visible a previously invisible finger mark, such as would be maco by merely touching a sheet of note paper. pa-per. But It Is now soing to be made the very hardest In tho history of crime by a new discoverv of M Bertillon, which will almost literally have the effect of stamping his guilt on the face of tho criminal Tho now system concerns itself entirely en-tirely with those parts of the faqe that a man' cannot disguise the nose, tho eyes nnd the cars The rest of tho face It ignores. As in the case of the finger prints, the new system was ridiculed bv the police when the inventor first offered It M Bertillon, however, cut short the objections by demanding tobo put immediately to a severe tesL A largo crowd of men, women and children was collected; a description of a faco was given by the superintendent In accordance .with tho inventor's schemo but without stating whothor the face was that of a man. woman or child. Tho official trial was dramatic in tho extreme Moroly giving tho slightest glance at the sea of faces before him, M. Bertillon, without the least hesitation, picked his man Lest chance might be thought to have had anything to do with It, tho experiment was repeated again and again, each time with tho same result Now-you might perhaps think that M. Beiillop received a long detailed description of tho nose, ears and eyes of the person he was to identify Nothing of the kind. Ono single word of description Is all that is required Thus you will see that the most amazing amaz-ing part of this system is Us simplicity. sim-plicity. Tho principle, which can be readily understood by the merest child, "is ns follows Bertillon dlvldea noses into three kinds, convex, concave and straight, and tho ears Into four, oval, square, triangular, round. Tho eyes are classed class-ed broadly as one of seven colors. but If there S ah" element of doubt about this the shape of the eyes and their distance from the no?e can be added. Now, It Is known that the .three classes of noso are more or. lless equally dlvldpd amongst tho population. popula-tion. Accordingly a detective, standing stand-ing in a crowded thoroughfare,-knows thoroughfare,-knows at onco that he can dismiss two-thirds of thoso that pass him. Ho has, therefore, one-third left to consider Next the ears. -Wo have seen that ho is only loqklng for ono of four classes of" ears. Consequently, the crowd Js now uarrpwed down to one-fourth one-fourth of ono-thlrd. Then the eyes "Ho Is looking for ono of seven classes of eyes. This, therefore, brings him down to ono-soenth ono-soenth of ono-fonrth of one-third of the passers-by. That Is to say, he has absolutely eliminated eighty-three out of every eighty-four persons he meets. , ThlB by Itself would be an enormous enor-mous accomplishment. But It Is rarn-ly rarn-ly infinitely more thnn it eoundB. For these statistics apply equally to men, women and children". And as the do-tectlve do-tectlve knows which of these thrco ho is looking for, tho field Is further reduced. re-duced. And to this tho fact that ho also probably has a rough Idea of tho height of the criminal, and may perhaps per-haps know of some other llttlo detail, de-tail, such as whether the eyes are close-set or wide 'apart, and you will see that the criminal's percentage of chances of paBalng in a crowd vanish Into thirty or forty places of decimals deci-mals 4 This. In broad outline, is the system sys-tem which is being adopted by the French police. Tho detectives are being trained in its application. Every Ev-ery day for several months they have to'plck their man out of a crowd without with-out having seen a photograph of him Of course, tho system Is elaborated elaborat-ed Into a number of finer details. Ears in particular lend themselves readily read-ily to a number of obvious subdivisions, subdivis-ions, and M. Bertillon has worked out flvo different clnsses of ear-lobe; the outer curves and tho tragus (the llttlo projection ovor tho opening) are also separateh treated. But sufficient has been said to give somo idea of tho marvelous power tho system places In the hands of the police Pearson's Weekly. oo |
