OBSERVATION POWERS

Grey River Argus, 11 June 1935, Page 6

OBSERVATION POWERS

FACULTY OFTEN LACKING.

A homiily upon the subject of the faculty of observation;, the lack of it among everyday people, and the different ways in which people remeuiberedj other people was given at Napier by Mr. Justice Blair in the course of his address to the jury in the cas*e against Edward Mountford Tuunicliffc, who was convicted of uttering a false cheque for £l'ooo.

11 is Honor said that a great deal* had been said as to what suits were worn by men in an identification parade in which Tunnicliffe was in-J. c.luded, what, hats and socks they wore.] and so forth. How many men in everyday walks of life, the Judge asked., could meet their friends and on the following morning say what they were wearing? It was astonishing what a

number of people did not know 'how many steps led to their front doors, or who could not remember the coloui of the articles that they were associated with daily in some way or other.

Quite a. few people could recollect what personal friends looked like*, and remember little tricks of speech or some distinctive thing about them, said the Judge, but they could not reduce their description to terms that could readily be understood by other men.. Some found it perfectly impossible to, describe faces of personal friends, though if a man had one pink eye and one white one, they would at once be able to recall and probably describe the fact.

It was a curious thing about the human species {that many did not notice the obvious, and when it came to a question of identification they were not able to describe a man. If anyone, continued His Honor, had an experience similar to that of the three bank officers, who declared that they saw Tunnicliffe cash a £lOOO cheque the incident would be burned info his memory. Some would say that there were features about the accus cd’s face, but in three week’s time they -would not remember them. Police officers, f course, were trained in observation. They were trained to remember small facts about people and incidents.