CRIMINAL CATCHING SECRETS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 645, 21 February 1914, Page 3

CRIMINAL CATCHING SECRETS.

DETECTIVES NOW MEASURE

EYES,, NOSE, AND EARS

Folice and criminologists are agreed that the identification of criminals by means of what is known as anthropometric measurements—that is, measurements of all the features, head and body—is undoubtedly the most important and valuable system ever discovered. But Alphonso Bertillon, the head of the Identification Department in the Prefecture of Police of Paris, who founded the measurement system, claims to have discovered an even more marvellous method of identification.

Given the colour of your eyes, the s-hape of your nose, and the formation of your ears, and he claims to be able to pick you out in any crowd, though he has never seen you before and has no other details of your make-up. In order to prove the value of his new system, Bertillon has accomplished this feat again and again., to the satisfaction of the police, and the results recorded are remarkable that his new system is about to supplant both the Bertillon measurements and the fingerprint system in the Criminal Record Bureaux of the French capital. IDENTIFIED AMONG THREE THOUSAND. Bertillon claims that, error under hia new system is impossible. 'I do not care," he says, "'about stature, general features, sex, or age. Identical ears, eyes, or nose do not occur again in any two human beings. They may appear to be the same, but my process of measurement will nearly always eliminate the persons not wanted. As a means of criminal identification, once a full record is made of the man, the finger-prints cannot compare with this in value. I divide all noses into three distinct classes—convex, concave, and straight. But this plan of exact measurement goes more in measurements of details. The same rule applies to-'tha ear and its shape, while the eyes are determined by colour." It is said that many errors have have been committed by the police, who have endeavoured to identify a man by his height, gait, and geaeral appearance ; but under the new system error will be impossible. On one occasion a man, whose characteristics of nose, eyes, and ears bad been carefully set down, was turned adrift in a crowd and told to go about Ms business as if nothing had happened. Bertillon was told the general vicinity in which to search for his man. He walked through the throng of 3,000 persons, looked keenly into the faces of some and less keenly at others, and finally he laid his hand on the back of a man. It was the one sought. HOW A DETECTIVE WOULD WORK Many people might imagfee that they have similarly-shaped noses, ears, and the same coloured eyes. As just now stated, Bertillon divides all noses into three classes—convex, concave, and straight. These, however, are only general classes, and his plan of identification by the nose goes on ftito minute details, such as the measurements of the nostrils, height, relative length to breadth and depth, and so on. It is obviously impossible, even at a brief glance, to mistake a man with a straight nose or concave nasal organ. And presuming that the number of noses in each general class is the same, two-thirds of humanity are excluded from suspicion, which means to say that a detective strolling through the crowd looking for a man with a convex nose need not look twice at two-thirds of those he meets.

The same reasoning applies to ears, which may be triangular, square, oval, or round. Let us presume that the man with the convex nose sought by the detective is likewise known to have the square type of car. Immediately the detective adds to the two-thirds eliminated by their uoses the three-fourths whose cars are not of the square type, and thus eleven out of every twelve men need not be further investigated, for either their noses or their ears do not come up to the demands of the description. And, of course, the same rule applies to the colour of the eyes. Much interest has been aroused by Bcrtillon's new system, and its working will be watched with keen interest by police all over the world.