BETRAYED BY GLASS

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1935, Page 3

BETRAYED BY GLASS

THIEF BROUGHT TO BOOK. NEW ULTRA-VIOLET RAYS TEST. How a new ultra-violet rays test solved the identity of a smash-and-grab raider* is described by Dr. Frank W. Martin, of the Forensic Medicince department of the Glasgow University, in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal. The raid was made on a public house, where a window was broken and a bottle of whisky stolen. A suspect taken into custody was found to have splinters of glass on his clothing. Dr. Martin explains that samples of glass which are precisely similar to the naked eye show a difference in colour when exposed to ultra-violet rays owing to fluorescence. In this case, pieces of the two kinds of glass, clear and frosted, which made up the broken window, were compared by the ultra-violet raytest with the splinters on the suspect’s jacket. Tire colour reaction showed that one of the samples from the window and the splinters found on the clothing were of the same make. Ultra-violet rays have also recently been used to detect other kinds of crime. The property of fluorescence has been employed to distinguish between false and real pearls and other types of precious stones. Another application has been in deciding whether documents sealed with sealing wax have been tampered with or not. Apparently, no two kinds of sealing wax look the same colour when submitted to the rays, and in this way the patching up or restoration of the original seal can at one# he detecteq