Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1868-05-22
THE DIFFICULTIES OE IDENTIEICA.
TT0N.

talnly a very large proportion, are very
untrustworthy witnesses to identify when
dependent on appearance alone They
are either from nature or habit incapable
of approaching form, and form alone is
the unerring proof of personal identity.
The difficulties in, the way of identified
ton, more especially of the dead, are to
them insuperable In the first place, peo-
pie are much more similar than we always
remember. Without accepting ordisputing
the extraordinary idea which exists in so
many countries, and is the basis of so
many fables, that every man has his
double " somewhere an individual abso-
lutely identical in appearance with him
self, 1T quite certain that the most extra
ordinary licensees do exist among per-
sons wholly disconnected in blood---that
there are faces and forms in the world
which are rather types than Individual
ties, people SO like one another that only
the most intimate friends and connections
can detect Indifference The likeness of
Madame Lamotte to Mary Antoinette is a
well-known historic instance, and there
are few persons who have not in the
course of their own experience met with
something of the same kind The writer
has twice. In one case, he was on board
a ship IN which were two passengers, who
neither were, nor by possibility could be,
connected by birth or any other circum-
stance whatever except, indeed, caste.
Oddly enough, they we're unaware of a
likeness which was the talk of the ship,
dressed in the same style, but, from some
ineXplicable repulsion-We are stating
mere facts-disliked and avoided one
another. The writer, in six weeks voy-
and with a oil init 70
Quaintance with one of the two. never
succeeded in distinguishing them by sight !;
and Of the remaining passengers, certainly
one half-say thirty educated persons
werein the same predicamcnt.. In the sec
ond instance the evidence is far less per-
feet but sufficient for the argument we are
now advocating. The writer stopped
short in Bond Street utterly puzzled by
the apparition. of one of his closest CON
nections not two yards off. Clearly it was
he, yet he could from circumstances by no
possibility be there. Still it was he, and
the writer advanced to address him, when
a momentary smile broke the spell, leav-
ing, however, this impression, 81 would
have sworn to Blank in any Court of JUS
tice. His double must be walking about
Bond Street The likeness was really
astounding, quite sufficient to have de-
ceiyed any number of policemen unac-
quainted previously with either man.
The writer has faculty for likeness or a
stupidity for identities? That is plaus-
| able, though an erroneous explanation,
and it brings up just the point we want to
make. Is it not just possible-it israther
a serious supposition, when our criminal
procedure is cOnsidered-but is it not lust
possible that something like color-blind-
ness affects this mater Of Identification !?
| that there is a large number of persons
whose evidence upon any question of
I identity, though perfectly honest, is worthy
of very little trust? that men upon this, as
upon most other matters, are guilty of an
unconscious carelessness, like that which
makes testimony about figured statements
/ so often valueless! We are all apt to
think that we observe faces very carefully,
l but it is quite certain, more certain than
almost any assertion of the same kind
that we do not so observe them. We are
also apt to believe that the difference in
faces is very great. is radical, and not de
pendent upon accidental features; yet it
is almost certain that no such difference
exists, that men are in reality as nearly
alike as animals appear to be. Take, for
instance, in evidence Of both these propo-
sitions-of the carelessness of our usual
glance, and of the similarity among men,
"a fact which a number Of our readers
can test for themselves No man on land
ing at an Indian or Chinese port for the
first time can for few days tell one man
from another. The natives are more de-
cisively unlike than so many Englishmen
because in addition to every other dis
tinction their complexions cover wider
range of color; but being similarly
dressed, they seem for few days as much
alike as SO many sheep, who are all alike
to a LOndoner, but among whom shep-
herd or dog makes no mistake. Now, if
men were much unlike, more unlike than
the sheep are, no such curious haziness
| would be possible, nor would it be if the
observer were unconsciously in the habit
of studying the form and character of
each face He has, as rule, no such
habit, but, unless an artist or policeman,
relies unconsciously on accidental circum-
stances, color, hair on lip or chin, gait, ex-
preston, or popularity of some one fea-
ture, and should that by any accident
disappear, he is utterly puzzled One
tenth, at least, of Western mankind is
consciously or unconsciously short
sighted, and never sees in any true sense of
seeing any face whatever, never quite
catches its nu0,aces of expression, never is
quite sure about its minor features, mover
quite ceases to idealize according to a pre-
conceived theory of character. Even of
those who do see perfectly, a large pro-
portion are not artists, never catch the
speciality Of the face they are looking at
enough to caricature it-some faces won't
submit to caricature, Lord Derby's, for in
stance, and Mr. Gladstones, in both Of
which the caricaturist invariably intensi-
ties the whole expression-and really
recollects it mainly by its accidents of color
or the like, accidents which may disappear
in life, and which do disappear in death.
1t is not easy to recognise the photo
graphs of men whose appearance depends
on color, and death does its work in de-
stroying color even more perfectly than
the sun. Fatncss and thinness, too, are
great aids to recognition; yet they are
temporary, dependent sometimes on mere
accidents of health We have all of us
met friends whom we have not seen, say,
for three year J, who have grown wider, if
not wiser, in the interval, and whom we
should not without speech have recog-
niZed. Death, as a rule, while it leaves
much unchanged, absolutely destroys
every distinction based either upon color
OF upon fatness and modifies thinness in
the most unexpected way, revealing uneX-
pected depths about brow and mouth,
while leaving the cheek untouched. No
child is recognizable in death by mere &C
quaintance, because in children S faces the
prominent points arc color and contour.
An actor cannot change his real face, but
q e. L..