BETRAYED BY MICROSCOPE

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18362, 21 April 1925, Page 2

BETRAYED BY MICROSCOPE

WAX FROM MAN'S EAR. In the office of the Prefect of Police in Toulon, France, not long ago, sat a man suspected pf counterfeiting. Half a dozen police officers were questioning him closely, but his glib answers, apparently made with the utmost frankness, were plausible enough to be quite * disarming. Vainly the police sought ;to make him confess. The man denied j everything, "and at last the prefect gave i a sign that the questionicsg was at an ' end. - 1 "Before you depart, though," the j prefect said to the "man, "a doctor will ! examine you. Merely a little precau- | tion in the interest of public, health." ' The man submitted willingly. TVo days later tho police called at his cafe and again took him. in custody, for they had evidenoe that eventually resulted in his conviction. The prisoner had unwittingly supplied it during the physical examination, in- a tiny specimen of wax which the doctor had taken , from ! his ear! This bit of wax had been forwarded to Dr. Edmond Locard, director of the police technical laboratory at Lyons, who had photographically enlarged it-with his microscopic camera. Magnified more than' 50,000 times the speck of wax showed telltale streaks'of printer's ink, particles of dust readily identified as from •a lithographic stone, and traces of characteristic crystals of a chemical used by engravers, undeniable evidence that the prisoner's story was a fabrication.