AMAZING RESULTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22991, 19 March 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMAZING RESULTS

SCIENTIFIC DETECTION MASTER CRIMINAL TRAPPED MICROSCOPE'S DEADLY "EYE" In the undoing of a man described as "the cleverest housebreaker in the North of England," the microscope played an all-important part. This was revealed when Harry Firth, aged 48, joiner, of Leeds, was sentenced at Leeds Quarter Sessions to three years' penal servitude. It was stated that he had already served two sentences of five years' penal servitude and two of three years. Firth was found guilty of house-breaking at Ilkley and stealing jewellery worth £2OO while a conviot-on-leave. Conclusive Evidence It was stated that when he was arrested on quite another charge, articles, found in his possession and in the house lie was accused of breaking into were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory, Nottingham. The results of the examination were amazing. It was alleged that:— Two wooden wedges found in the entered house and two in Firth's house were of exactly the same type. In the cuff of Firth's overcoat and the turnups of his trousers were fragments of black walnut, similar to the wood of a bureau drawer. Particles of green paint taken from his overcoat were identical with paint scraped from the door in effecting an entrance to the house. On a drawer of the bureau were serrations which, when measured microscopically to one-fiftieth of a millimetre, corresponded exactly with the damaged part of the edge of a chisel in Firth's possession. x The brass lock of the bureau was damaged, and traces of brass were on the chisel and on a jemmy. Flogged for Stealing Superintendent Craig, chief of the Leeds C.1.1)., said of Firth: "He is a clever house-breaker. All his confederates are expert housebreakers. He dresses exceedingly well, and oan go into good-class districts without cans- I ing the least suspicion." ] Pleading for leniency to the Recorder, Mr. C. Milton-Barber, Firth said: "As a boy of nine 1 was flogged for stealing a pair of boots to put on my bare feet. A little later 1 was flogged again for stealing food for my hungry stomach. "In these days of enlightenment that could not happen. We have children's courts now; in those days the Children's Act was non-existent. The harsh treatment I received as a child burned my very soul. It has been with me throughout the whole of my life,. "At 17 I was sent to prison for six months' hard labour —I' was not treated as a Borstal boy—and before 1 was 20 1 was again sent to hard labour to mix with older criminals." Firth went on to say, "The ticket-of-leavc system is one of the vilest things ever invented to ensure that a man shall go back to prison." The Recorder, when passing sentence, remarked: "The only mitigation 1 can find in your case is that at cer-' tain periods when out of gaol you have worked honestly."