The identification was absolutely correct. The prisoner, on being shown the letter, admitted his guilt.
If a clerk handles papers or letters on his employer's desk, it is a very easy matter of detection. By means of a little syringe filled with a powder blown on the paper, the finger prints are reproduced with startling clearness.
Broken Glass Proves Guilt.
Some pieces of broken glass had been taken to Scotland Yard, four days previous to the Ward, Lock & Co. burglary. These fragments of glass had been picked up at the London City Mission, where a burglar had broken through a window and carried off a clock and other articles. No one could be connected with the crime after a most thorough detective hunt.
The one remaining source was a bit of glass on which finger prints had been noticed. These were photographed and compared with the finger prints of all the recent records. Surprisingly enough, they corresponded exactly with those of the young clerk who had been found stealing books from the publishers' warehouse. Instead of being a clerk, he was a very adept young burglar. On this new evidence the prisoner was sentenced to twelve months at hard labor.
About a month before this a similar case occurred in London. A man was arrested on Tower Hill carrying a pair of boots wrapped up in a brown paper. He said he had been employed to carry the parcel to Fenchurch Street Station. He was held on suspicion. Later in the day it was discovered that the boots had been stolen from a neighboring store, and that on the transom, which had been broken, there was a perfect imprint of a man's finger.
Inspector Collins, superintendent of the finger print department at New Scotland Yard, examined the print and found it corresponded to the mark of the suspected man's left forefinger made on the brown paper parcel in which the boots were wrapped. The evidence was conclusive, the man pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to nine months at hard labor.
About the same time another interesting case occurred in Staffordshire, England. There had been a wholesale burglary of a large jeweler's shop. The perpetrator had left distinct finger marks on a plate glass shelf in a window. These marks were photographed and sent to New Scotland Yard. They were identified as belonging to William Davis, a notorious burglar who had been confined at Wakefield prison in 1901.
The man was hunted up. He was found living near the place of the recent robbery under the name of John McNally. He at first denied the recent offense, but afterward made a full confession. But for these tell-tale finger marks, he might have continued to ply his trade unsuspected under his new name, in a district where the local police did not know him.