A NEW TRAP FOR BURGLARS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13738, 20 May 1910, Page 6

A NEW TRAP FOR BURGLARS.

M. Bertilloii, the world-famous author of the anthropometries! system which has revolutionised criminal investigation, has in\onted an ingenious, apparatus for registering tho nmount of force represented by the marks left by burglars' t< ols on do'irs. window*, . . desks, and In the nnthroy.oiuetrieal department of the Prefecture of Police, surrounded by hundreds _ of elaborate .-harts, scales, and photographs of typos' of different people*, of - the earth, says the Paris forrespon- . dent of the "Daily Mail,'' the great criminalist courteously shoAcd mc tha working of his new machine. It consists of two dynamo-meters placed at _ right angles, the pcr_K>udicular dial '', registering' tin- pressure, tho iiori-ont'tl -', dial representing the traction. 111. L ' the case of a desk being forced an identical piece of wood is taken from •_ a comprehensive collection »>t woods - <'~ which goes ,vith "he machine and h clamped into the apparatus, after which the mark- found on the object • are reproduced on the wood, cither -' with the instruments left behind by the ._< burglar or by similar tools, and the force used to>priije or pull open tlie object is registered respectively on tho measure- ortraction dynamometer. M.. "Bertillon claims nothing definite V lor his invcition. except that cases ~ , often arise in which tho knowledge of the amount'of mu'cular force employed -' in the bursary might thrp.v valuable light on the identity of the author. Just,as Sherlock Holmes was an autho- -_ rity ou tobacco ash, so «'s M. Bortillun' ".-,/ an* expert in wood, distinguishing at * ; a glance-' the different v-.triotief. from ■ a'large collection placed in the drawers of the table on which his machine is mounted.