Bad for the Criminal.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 2203, 11 July 1910, Page 6

Bad for the Criminal.

M. Bertillon has made another start* ling discovery that will fill the crirai rial classes with terror. The eminent director of anthropometry has just complotcd a new apparatus which ho calls " dynamometre d'effractions." Up to the present the police and others had only a vague idea of the effect that the traces of a burglar represent. It is claimed that M. Bertillon's dynamometre measures exactly the muscular effort brought to bi-ar in breaking open a door or window or in forcing or breaking a safe, box or other receptacle. By a system of classifying these forces he can tell whether the effort was that of one man alone or not, or two cr more, whether it was that of a maAi or woman, or of one young or old. The dynamometre is in two parts one to measure effect by pressure, the other that of drawing or pulling. The traces that the person leaves of his movements will give his weight; his muscular strength will be shown by the character of the chips or splinters that ho breaks off a piece of wood, the pressure that he has been able to exert on the tools to break the sale, and his power of pulling, shoving or shifting. If, as is commonly the case, he has forgotten the tools that he used to commit the robbery, the scene can be reconstructed by means of these measurements. The instrument can he turned in any direction, or used in any position, so that the police can use it for every surface without disturbing the condition in which they find the place of crime.