By kind permission of “The Daily Mirror”
The accompanying illustrations, which are reproduced here by the permission of Mr. Thorne Baker and the Daily Mirror, show a portrait of King Edward VII and an outline war map which were thus transmitted by “wireless” telegraphy.
Mr. Thorne Baker states that the use of his instrument renders “tapping” impossible, since by merely making a slight alteration in the speed of running the machines, in accordance with a signal arranged beforehand, the pictures would be so distorted as to be unrecognisable.
As an early instance of the use made by the police of a portrait in identifying a suspected individual the case of Arden, who was executed for murder at the beginning of last century, may be mentioned.
Arden had given a drawing of himself to a youth, and this was handed to the police who were thus able to identify the accused in London a month later.
The general use of photography in the press has frequently come to the aid of the police, and instances of photographs of a wanted individual being employed for this purpose will occur to everyone. At any police station may now be seen reproductions of photographs of missing individuals, and these being circulated all over the world, reduce to a small compass the limits within which a suspect may go without detection.
Reference may be made to two recent cases by way of illustration. A nurse had kidnapped a child and all traces of her whereabouts were lost for some days. Her portrait was published in all the leading papers, and being seen by the proprietor of an hotel in the Midlands was recognised as that of one of his guests.
Acting on this information a police inspector suddenly accosted the suspected woman and addressed her in her real name, and she, taken off her guard, answered his remarks naturally, and was at once arrested.
In January of 1908, Miss Violet Charlesworth succeeded in filling pages of every English paper by suddenly vanishing from her creditors, under circumstances intended to suggest that she had been killed. She arranged a motor-car “accident” upon the cliffs at Penmaenbach, and ostensibly was flung through the glass screen of the car into the sea.
As no trace of the body could be found it was soon suspected that there had been no accident, and that before long the victim would come to life again. Her portraits were published in hundreds of papers, and were posted at police stations all over the United Kingdom, and amateur detectives by the score endeavoured to discover her whereabouts.