M. Bertillon has proved that the appearance of any individual may be expressed in terms so clear, precise, and unequivocal that identically the same image is evoked in the mind of everybody who hears or reads the description. With nothing else but such a description to guide him in his search, anybody of normal intelligence is able, after a few lessons from the inventor of the system, to unerringly pick out the person indicated from a crowd, however great, and in an incredibly short time. The new method materially adds to the efficacy of the anthropometrical system of identification, with which the name of Bertillon, the inventor of the "thumb-prints" method, is inseparably connected. A brief outline of that system may here be given.
The variety of Nature is infinite; she never repeats herself. No two leaves are ever precisely alike, much less two human beings. A superficial observer may fancy that two individuals resemble each other in a remarkable manner. Let him examine them more attentively; he will find that they differ radically in almost every detail. The farther he carries his examination the more numerous and the more conspicuous will the differences appear, until at last he may almost experience a difficulty in discovering any trace of the resemblance that before seemed so striking. This is a résumé of some of the principal axioms at the base of M. Bertillon's teaching.
Every person, then, who for one reason or another comes within the power of the law in France and in some other countries is photographed and measured in prevision of his transgressing on some future occasion.
THESE ARE THE PORTRAITS OF A CRIMINAL, TAKEN IN PROFILE AND FULL FACE.
THIS IS THE SAME CRIMINAL, WHO WAS IDENTIFIED BY A DETECTIVE AND ARRESTED ON THE EVIDENCE OF HIS EARS.
The complete description and measurements are transferred to a piece of thin cardboard, on which are also pasted two photographs of the subject—one full face, the other in profile, both reduced to one-seventh of life size. This is termed the prisoner's "fiche," which is now put away for future reference. Every year about twelve thousand "fiches" are thus added to the collection in Paris. In ten years this means one hundred and twenty thousand; in twenty years nearly a quarter of a million.
Let us assume now that a crime has been committed. All the evidence tends to prove that the culprit is none other than a certain man who passed through M. Bertillon's hands some years ago. His "fiche" is taken out, and copies of the photograph on it are distributed in the usual quarters. This old photograph is the only guide the police have by which to identify the fugitive. In the interval that has elapsed since it was taken, however, the man's outward appearance may have so completely changed that he might now walk under the very nose of the cleverest detectives in Europe, trained in the old school, without being recognised. Just such a case occurred quite recently in Paris, and was specially taken in hand by one of the most experienced men the "Sûreté" possessed at the time, but without result. Six months later a comparatively inexperienced detective arrested the criminal, who was on the point of embarking for America. Trained by M. Bertillon's new method to concentrate his attention exclusively on features which hardly ever vary, and to neglect entirely such accidental details as the fashion of wearing the hair and beard and the apparel, he had at once recognised the person he was in search of by the characteristic shape of ears and nose. This case is given in the accompanying photographs.
The contrary case to the foregoing instance—that is to say, the arrest of an innocent man, on the ground that he resembled a photograph in the detective's possession—used to be an all too frequent occurrence. Not even the very keenest of the law's sleuthhounds were able to avoid such mistakes. A good example is shown in the photographs next reproduced. Innumerable instances, too, are recorded of people claiming, as that of a brother, a husband, or a son who had disappeared, a body which, had they but been M. Bertillon's pupils for an hour, they could never by any possibility have confounded with their missing relative. So persuaded have women often been of the accuracy of their own judgment that there have been cases in which they have at first indignantly repudiated the husband or son who subsequently reappears on the scene in flesh and blood and seeks to prove that he is not dead after all.