PHOTOGRAPHY AS A DETECTIVE.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3034, 5 November 1878, Page 2

PHOTOGRAPHY AS A DETECTIVE.

Photography has long been employed by the police to assist them in indentifying persons who are "wanted," and the extensive use to which the art is put by the Paris authorities is evident from the display wade at the International Exhibition in the pavilion set apart for the French capital. Mere not only a large series of criminal portraits are shown, but examples are presented of various other applications in which photography has been found useful to assist officers of justice. In caseß of murder, for instance, it seems to be the duty of the police photographers to photograph the scene of the deed, and also to record by the assistance of the camera the position of the victim. There is a special branch of the Paris police who are photographers in uniform, and a place is set aside at the station for a studio and dark closet. In a word, the occupation is now a part of the policeman's duty ; and in cases where we might employ a dark lantern they would have recourse to a camera.

There is little doubt that the Paris I police hare been able to detect many a I crime by resorting to assistance of this kind. Several instances of forgery upon notes and bonds, in which the original figures were erased and others written in their place, have been discovered in this way. We believe that the Bank of France has an officer of*its own upon whom devolves the duty of examining any suspicious documents with the camera. In a photograph it seems ink marks, which are invisible to the eye, are frequently reproduced, while an erasure, let it be ever so carefully smoothed over, becomes apparent in a finely executed photograph. In a word it is next to impossible to make an alteration in the matter of writing or printing upon a paper surface without the photographer finding you out sooner or "later. Even upon the subject of style in handwriting, the camera gives a sharp criterion. By photographing a word or two and enlarging the up and down strokes to very wide dimensions, the character of the writing is more easily studied than in its original form. This instrumentality is sometimes used by inquisitive police agents anxious to get at the history of a doubtful document.— London Daily News.