CEASELESS WATCH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 150, 6 April 1933, Page 8

CEASELESS WATCH.

EYES OF SCOTLAND YARD. MANY STRANGE DISGUISES. Scotland Yard never slumbers. In that sleepless department an unsolved crime is not a pigeon-holed crime. And only death or conviction writes "completed", on a dossier. During the last few years there have been several murders of callous brutality and cunning. The miscreants are still, at large. But in three cases the "Yard" is satisfied .as to their identity. The Crown, however never prosecutes until the chain of evidence is—or appears to bo—complete. In those three cases ihere is a missing link. Given that, and the chain would be complete. The search for it is unceasing. In one of the cases certain events have brought its discovery nearer. And sensational developments are not unexpected. In the Furnace case a detective played the part of a street musician. Equally ingenious guises and disguises are adopted frequently. For instance, an observer, not long ago, might have seen on a country road not far from London a few workmen, with the usual road-repairing paraphernalia, engaged upon some supposed repairs. But if he had carefully watched he would have noticed that the men dug out and filled in the same hole time and time again! The repairers were policemen, and the "night-watchman" a lynx-eyed detective. The movements of a man under suspicion for a grave crime were under observation. In another case a suspected person little thought that the man who delivered the milk was a police officer, and in a case in which the police wanted close and minute examination of a suspect's features and certain peculiarities in speech, the broken-down old man who delivered the morning newspaper was none other than a well-known detective. In one sensational murder case—as yet unsolved—the police obtained important clues in finger-prints. They are satisfied as to the owner of those fingers, but no finger-prints can be taken before a person is arrested—and only with some difficulty after —and in the absence of those prints they are unable to effect an arrest. But they are patiently waiting! It has been urged that there should bo a system of universal registration of finger-prints. Were that system in operation, more than one murder now unsolved would have been expiated. A comparison of the finger-prints found with those of the suspected person would complete tho identification and provide the link so urgently required.