CRIMINALS & CLUES.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 10508, 11 February 1928, Page 6

CRIMINALS & CLUES.

HOW DETECTIVES WOKE. SCOTLAND YARD. .METHODS. POLICE WILES IN FRANCE. r J'hc British police specialise, not in maiinunting, out in Keeping an eve on tfie potential-'criminal, Mr. -Melville Bavission Post snows in ins new book, "1 lie jlau 'vimuers,.;; Uliey apprehend the criminal in many cases, as the l-esuit or knowing v, men criminal is, nicely, to nave committed the crime. • Scotland Yard keeps careful registers, a .Nickname anil Alias Itegisier amt a Tattoo and Deformity r register, and so on, and circulates to ail police stations Weekly lists or notorious criminals and their whereabouts. Continental criminologists declare that Drit.sh police rely too much on identmeation, and quote the Louis Deck case as an aiarming instance of its unreliability, r litc-en ol seventeen identihed the innocent Leek as the man who had defrauded them. Scotland lard believes that ' a “clue’ will anvays turn up. •That clue, if .carefully roJiovved up, must lead to-trie criminal. ' it'•may hot, however, lead to ids conviction. There another question obtrudes, if .fortune is not on the side of the criminal, -English law, Air. Post implies, most emphatically is, in its legitimate anxiety to protect the innocent it makes things easier for the criminal. Air. Post quotes a cynical French Police Judge as saying: -Formerly there vv«s something good about British justice—-it hau torture at its command.” .-Nowadays the -British criminal not only escapes torture. There is no inquisition, no confrontation, no reenactment of the crime. DIPLOAIACY IN FRANCE. French detective methods fan, in Mr. Post’s opinion,, midway between the plodding, rule of thumb methods of Scotland Yard and the. ultrascientific methods of the Universitytrained rnen-liimters of Uermany, Austria, and Switzerland. The French sleuth has assets peculiar to himself, a certain gift of intuition, a resourcefulness that (incidentally) lie shares with.-the-French criminal, a logical mind and a strong preference for the methods of diplomacy. As an example of this last is cited the case of the well-to-do dealer in antiques who was suspected of being a... “fence” in a large way. No evidence, however, could be found, nor were aitv stolen goods ever located oh. his premises. Then one day an agent of the Sarete accosted him in the name not his own as lie was leaving the shop. 'The dealer pro-, tested that he was not the man named, but tlie agent persisted,, and the dealer, agreed to go to police headquarters and clear the matter up." At the police headquarters the agent secured possession of tne dealer's .handkerchief, rushed .with it back, to the shop and told the dealer’s! wife that he had a message front her husband. All,was discovered, the police would arrive at any minute, and she must instantly pack all incriminating- articles into two taxis waiting outside arid remove them to a certain address. The agent showed thb dealer’s handkerchief as proof that he had come from him. Tho wife promptly led the way to a secret closet where the stolen goods were kept. Helped by the agent she loaded them into the 'taxis and drove away—to the police station.

DEALING WITH AN AGITATOR. On another occasion, tho -French police wished to deal with a noted agitator, the head of dangerous secret societies, editor of an inceendiary newspaper, and an avowed enemy of established law and order. The police were reluctant to arrest him as .they knew he courted arrest. Instead they caused him to be appointed a- Chevalier of the Legion of Honor “for conspicuous acts of service to the State.” The announcement completely ruined him as an agitator, for his revolutionary associates would never believe that he had not really earned the title. German crime detectors are famed for the thoroughness of their laboratory investigations. Tl loll ' theory might almost be said to he, that the right use of the microscope will solve any problem and discover the author of any crime. To that extent their methods are admirable and nninir poaehahlo. A ca,p is found at the scene of a murder. Under the microscope two hairs are discovered adhering to the cap. The police are told, after these have been examined, that the murderer is probably “a niah of middle age, of robust constitution, black hair, intermingled with grev, recently cut, commencing to he held.” Hairs are found adhering to tho knife of a suspect. He tells the police they arc the hairs, of a rabbit. he. recently skinned. The police, suspecting them to be human [fairs, send them to be analysed.' ; The analyst* replies that they are neither human hairs nor rabbit hairs, but..squirrel hairs. It is recalled that' the suspect was wearing a squirrelskin coat on the night of the-mur-der.' He has committed the error of wiping his knife on the coat 1 GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN METHODS. Tho question 'of recognition plays ,a large part in criminal detection. In ’the Sacco-Vanzetti trial witnesses identified one or other of the defendants, though they had seen them at a distance from which, the defence contended, nobody could recognise anybody. In Germany the criminologists ' would ascertain the distance the witness was from the prisoner, the state of the light, the hour of the day, or, if the recognition took place at niaht, the nature and quality of artificial light in which recognition was possible or not. It is to Austria, however, that Mr Post bids one go if he is' to see applied criminology at it zenith. There the scientific expert of Germany and the riimble-wdtted man-hunter, of •France are combined m the rinule person of . the super policeman'. Jn Austria every policeman above the grade of N.C.O-. must become a Bachelor of Laws, and to become a Bachelor of Laws calls for nine years’ training at the University. Police officials in Austria rank, it appears, with British members of the Royal Society. Their emoluments are high. Titles are coni erred on them. It is possible -that- Scotland Yard would come in for more praise if man-controlling as well as man-hunt-ing were dealt with. Austrian police, so clever at catching criminals, seem to be pretty inefficient when it comes to controlling nioh violence, to handling c-fowds and shepherding agitators. Herein they could in turn learn something from Scotland Yard.