WIRE AND WIRELESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 899, 1 October 1910, Page 3

WIRE AND WIRELESS.

CHASING CRIMINALS. Hawley Crippen’s was the first capture of a criminal achieved by the aid of wireless. In view of the interest it aroused, we may recall the first recorded capture of a criminal by the aid of the electric telegraph. The criminal first captured by the aid of the telegraph was a murderer named Tawell, who had been convicted of forgery, and sentenced to 20 years transportation. In Sydney, as a chemist and druggist, he got a fortune of ,£20,000. Upon his return from Botany Bay he married a widow, a Quakeress, and he applied to be again admitted to the Society of Friends, but was peremptorily refused. In England he engaged in the shipping business. At Berkhampstead he bad a large house and kept six servants. He was interested in natural history, and was said to be very philanthropic. The message which led to his capture was: —“A murder has just been committed at Salt Hill, and the suspected murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket for London by the train which lelt Slough at 7.42 p.m. He is in the garb of a Quaker, with a brown grey-coat on which reaches nearly down to his feet. He is in the last compartment of the second firstclass carriage.” The reply was: —' 1 The up train has arrived, and a person answering in every respect the description given by telegraph came out of the compartment mentioned. I pointed out the man to Sergeant Williams. The man got into a New Road omnibus, and Sergeant Williams into the same.” Tawell was tried, con emued, and hanged, and the public for the first time generally realised the possibilities lying in the as yet little developed electric telegraph. Nowadays the telegraph not only enters into the calculations of every criminal, but is constantly employed in the service of crime, as every other practical invention is, from the motor-car to the oxyhydrogen furnace. So it will be with '• wireless,” if it has not already been, which it almost certainly must. The leading criminals of to-day—both those “ wanted” by the police and those protected by them —travel a good deal by the Atlantic boats, and probably use the installation for their business purposes like the rest of the business men.