WHY DISGUISES FAIL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19472, 6 May 1925, Page 11

WHY DISGUISES FAIL.

By Charles Procter in the Daily Mail. The other night I sat in the parlour of a country inn and identified nine men without being able to see one of them. There was nothing remarkable or mysterious about the feat, although when I ■mote the names of the men down on a slip of paper and asked the landlady to verify them she evidently thought I was a pupil of the Zancigs. The men I identified were in the public bar, which was separated only by a wooden partition from the room in which I sat, and although !■ could not see them I could hear them. They wore, of course, all men with whom I am acquainted. Some of them I recognised by their voices, two by the way they coughed, one by his wheezy laugh, one by his sneeze—the infrequent sneeze of the habitual snufflaker —and another by his irritating habit of lattling the bottom of his glass on the table. I had been discussing the disappearance of Major Bailey and the difficulty of any man disguising himself in such » way as to make recognition by friends or acquaintances impossible. My little experiment was by way of showing that a man can be identified by oar as well as by eye. Actually it is not by features that we recognise a person, Prequeutly I meet a blind man who greets me by name immediately I address him. Presumably he recognises me by my voice, but when I almost lost my voice a few weeks ago as a result of an attack of catarrh the blind man nevertheless identified me at once when I huskily bade him “Good afternoon.” We can all, if we are blessed with good sight, recognise a friend at a distance of a hundred yards or so, even if we cannot see his face and ho is wearing different clothes from those we are accustomed to seeing him wear. Wo identify him at first glance by his bearing, his walk, the swing of his arms, and the set d! his shoulders and head. Truly the difficulties of assuming a disguise which would deceive one's intimates are tremendous. To stand any hope of success one would require to be an accomplished actor as well as a master of “makeup,” for voice, figure, manner, bearing, carriage, -walk, and habits would all have to be changed. And even then a man might betray himself by his cough or laugh, for there is as much individuality in coughs and laughter as there is in voices. It is only in fiction that a “wanted” man can shave off his moustache or assume a false beard and escape recognition ; only in fiction that a husband fails to recognise his wife if she dons a wig and a pair of blue spectacles. So, at least, contends Scotland Yard. Yet there are dozens of “wanted” men, personally known to tho police, who are still at large.