The vessel was fitted with a wireless installation, and now for the first time since its invention wireless telegraphy played the leading part in the capture of fugitives from the land.
The police in London were thus immediately acquainted with the whereabouts of the wanted pair, and an officer was sent off by a swifter steamer to greet them on their reaching Canada. Day by day, with almost feverish excitement, the progress of the Montrose across the ocean was followed, and the chief topic of public interest was the race between the police officer on one steamer and the fugitives upon the other.
The inspector won easily, and was ready waiting to arrest Crippen and his companion at the first approach of the Montrose to the Canadian shore.
The trial that followed had many features of scientific interest to which reference is made in another place.
The recent advances in the methods of telegraphing a facsimile of a specimen of handwriting or a sketch, or of reproducing a photograph at a distance have greatly increased the difficulties of criminals escaping detection, and the telectrograph, as it is termed, will prove a powerful weapon in the hands of the detective.
The selenium machines of Professor Korn were employed by the Daily Mirror in transmitting the portraits of the chief actors in the Steinheil case, and one of these photographs, which was received in London while the Court was still sitting in Paris, is shown in the accompanying picture.
A still more practical telectrograph is that invented by Mr. Thorne Baker, which weighs only about twenty-four pounds. This has been simplified to such an extent that the photograph may be printed upon a flexible plate with a backing of lead foil, and by attaching this to the transmitting cylinder the thousands of minute points which go to make up the image will be exactly reproduced upon a receiving cylinder at the other end of a telephone wire.
The instrument may also be used with wireless installations for the transmission of simple pictures or diagrams, and by its means it would be easy for a ship at sea to send or receive portraits of an individual under suspicion.
PHOTO SENT BY TELEGRAPH FROM PARIS