From the same source comes the amusing story of a man who swore that he recognised an assailant who attacked him in the dark, by the flash produced by a blow upon his eye! The absurdity of the claim is self-evident, for the “flashes” due to a blow do not emit light, and can therefore never cause any external object to be visible.
A curious factor influencing the value of evidence of personal identification is the readiness with which credulous humanity will accept any story however improbable. But for this the notorious Tichborne case, which dragged on for years, would have been settled in a few days. It is difficult now, recalling the facts, to understand how anyone could have believed in the identity of the butcher, Arthur Orton, with the missing heir to the estates, Roger Tichborne. The latter was of a slim build, while the claimant was a couple of inches taller and weighed twenty-five stones. The real Roger had had the education of a gentleman, while the claimant could neither write nor speak correctly.
Yet, notwithstanding the enormous dissimilarity in appearance and manners of the two men, the mother of Roger Tichborne recognised Orton as the son whom she and everyone else had believed to have been drowned when the ship was wrecked. When he came to England to see her he had thought it prudent to feign illness. Lady Tichborne, therefore, went to see him, and he got on the bed, and turned his face to the wall. His adopted mother, however, recognised him by his “ears so like his uncle’s.”
This must have been an instance of self-deception, for there was evidence that the lobes of the ears of the two men were absolutely different.
It was this recognition, however, that encouraged Orton to persevere with his claim to the estates, and assisted in aiding the recollection of other people, who swore that he was Roger.
CHAPTER IV
SYSTEMS OF IDENTIFICATION
Photography—Anthropometry—Finger-prints and their Uses.