DETECTIVE SCIENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15321, 8 December 1911, Page 10

DETECTIVE SCIENCE.

LAWS TRUSTY SLEUTHHOUNDS.

Time was when a poliMman became a dctwlivo through hie experience, on the beat. To-day tno inveetigator of crime mid its methods must enter the detective, service by cnother door—that of applied science. That is to fay, the criminal in our age becomrj more and more of a ecicntiet. The owind'.er and the murderer are proving thoinsclves peychologists of power, chejniste-of great knowkdpo, electricians of genius. The great detecfivo must meit the great criminal upon n piano of intellectual equality. He faile to do that nowadays, and this circumetance accouute for the relatively large amount ol undetected nnd mysterious crime. —Murder Problem.—

Let us consider, for instance, .the crimo of murder. The general public hoe little idea of the number of murders that p«e undetected owing to tho chemical expertness revealed in disposing of the body of the victim. Thie is the-scientific problem involved in nil murder. Tho bungling murderer docs not know how to aiepofe of the body of hid victim, whereas the scientifio criminal can do so. .With what increasing advantage and succew tho weapons forged by eciontific research can be utilised in the war of Bociety upon the criminal lim been shown in vn'rioiw recent trials. Of all modern ngencies electricity, eaye Mr Ainsworth Mitchell, one of our authorities on tho investigation of crime, is one of the moat effective, if not for detecting, at least for capturing the criminal. Still wo find it hnrd to bcliove that tho utility of the telegraph wae once in euch grave doubt that even when it transmitted messages spoed over hundreds of miles the public could not lake it feriousjy. Not until the telegraph had shown its utility in the capture of criminals did it acquire any reputation with public men na a useful invention instead of a trifling toy. Prior to that time tho invention had been little bettor thnn a failure from a commercial point of view. —The T«lectograph.— The telegraph lisa learned a lot about detective work sinco that time. It has even dabbled in photography, and is now able not merely to describe but to depict a fugitive criminal. The last word (6o far, at anyratc) on this subject appears tvi be. tlio teleefflgraph invented by Thornc Baker, which may aleo be wed with,wireless installations for the transmission of oimplo pictwrfe or diagrams and by moans of which it would be easy for n ship nt *ea to send or to receive portraits. Indeed, a picturo of the late King Etiward wae actually transmitted in this manner. In every department of crime nowadays Ecicnco seems to have lent a hand to make easy tho work of the criminal. This circumstance greatly discourages tho layman, who doce not realise that were the detective also an applied scientist tho forger, tho thief, and the murderer would bo quickly apprehended., The criminal's own finger prints, as everyone knowe, are an infallible means of identification, but the retort and the microscope of the analyst are equally fatal to the adepts in tho higher and more :cientifio departments of crimo. In the old oaye .the murderer caught red-handed conld safely deny the bloodstain was human. The microscope was unable to contradict him. By a method recently discovered tho analyst examining the mimitast stain of blood, dry and scarcely discernible to tho naked eye, on the" garment of n suspect, can tell'lo a certainty tho epecies of animal in the veins of which it originally flowed. Thero is but one exception to the rule. Tho blood of the anthropoid ape gives the eame reaction as humwi blcod. Tim cautious murderer who resorts to the subtle agency of pcison has even more • reason to dread the analyst, with hie test ' tubn and his microscope, than has his brother in crime who adopts tho crudor method of bone-breaking and blood-letting. On this head it is noteworthy that n'dcal of nonsense, from a scientifie standpoint, line been written by 'historians about Crear Borpia and his firter. Their poisons i were fo subtle and to deadly that the loss of (heir eecret is drecribed as a blowing •to mankind. The modern poisoner lice fluid, powder, nnd perfume far moro subtle mid far deadlier at his disposal, yet among them nrc nine that conld elude* tho ecruI tiny of.modern science.