CHANGE OF FACES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 14

CHANGE OF FACES.

CRIMINALS' EXPE'DfEMTS. AID OF NEW SURGERY* COVERING UP THE TRACKS. Through the recent capture in Vermont, United States, of a burglar who had had his facial appearance altered by surgery attention was called to the increasing use made of plastic surgery by criminals seeking to escape identification. On prisoner was found a receipt for 450 dollars, paid to a New York surgeon for operations changing the contour.'; of his ears, chin and nose. He had also dyed his hair; in his automobile was found a bottle of colouring iiuid with directions for using it. Reconstructive surgery was quickened by the World War, says ah American paper. Men were coming into the base hospitals with chins blown away, with cheek bones splintered or noses shattered. The men were utterly disheartened at the prospects of future uselessness. Pity energised the surgeons to attempt restorations by means of plastic surgery. In place of the missing chinbone a shin bone was grafted. . Where a cheekbone had been shattered a plate was inserted. The obliterating of noses and the grooving of foreheads were overcome by rebuilding the bony structures and grafting; akin over them. Men who had been placed in (he class of hopeless denpendants were restored to lives of normal usefulness. Artificial Countenances. Almost immediately criminals began to observe that the expression and .ispect of the soldiers whose faces had been rebuilt had been altered with the features. The cheekbone Height be a little higher or lower, the contour of the nose might show a variation and a slight difference between the original and the reconstructed forehead might completely alter the person's appearance. Some soldiers who had undergone facial transformation were so changed as to be unrecognisable by their friends. Criminals saw a means of disconnecting themselves from their records. Their pictures had been published on police files throughout the world; here was a chance to sink their identity and evade recognition. The more desperate ones flocked to the plastic surgeons and laid at the doors of the police authorities a new difficulty. Through the art of the reconstructive surgeon almost any kind of face desired may be produced. If a criminal has a conspicuous saddle or depression in his nose, wax can be moulded about it and its outline straightened. If he has a bulging or hawkish nose he can have it made like Apollo's by having the septum cut dowsx Other changes can be made in shape or effect by grafting pieces of shinbone on the nose. # A Few Cuta With a Knife, As to the lips, a few cuts with the surgeon's knife and their curve or thickness is changed. The mouth can be made smaller or larger. Eyelids can take on the Orients,! slant by having the muscles shortened, pulled up and stitched. If the patient disilikes the Oriental slant he may take ths levator palebri cut, and then his eyelids will, droop. If he has sagging cheeks he may have part of the tissues removed and the ends joined in normal features. Each operation gives him a new profile and removes his semblance tc his former self. Then, too, the criminal may have his fingertips, altered by surgery so that the prints will not agree with those taken previously and it will be difficult, to prove hi:m a man with a gaol record. This alteration is performed by cutting away part of the flesh of the finger tips and" then uniting the edges of the skin in. such a way that the concentric lines, will record differently in the station house impressions. BertUloa System Unbeaten. The features upon which the BertiUon system of identification is based, however, cannot bs change*! bv reconstructive surgery. In this system'five measurements are used as a basis. They are j the length of the head, the breadth of i the head, the length of the middle finger, of the left, foot, and of (h® forearm from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger. It is possiblft for a criminal to have his middle finger shortened or his left foot altered, but the very alteration would leave its mark and attract, the attention of police examiners. Thu bony structures which the Bertillon system uses as a basis of identification are mostly unalterable. Not every roaming criminal, however, gets close enough to the police dragnet to be put through the Bertillon identification process. If he goes with a brandnew crook in his nose, a slant to his eyes that was not there before, and his telltale sagging cheeks pulled up by the plastic surgeon's knife and needle, the chances are that he will be unrecognised and unmolested. The Vermont burglar was captured before he had time to make new variations in his physiognomy.