The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1886-02-10
THE FACES OF CRIMINALS.
PILED AWAY IN NEW xoRK's
'RoeuEs' GALLERY"
How isOgues' Features arc Scizcti
ANA Held by the Camera DE
gulsoS and Distortions.


A New York Herald reporter has beon
visiting the "Rogues' Gallery" at police
headquarters. A detective said to the
scribe;
"There are people who look at the
pictures and saw 'Of what good can
these twisted and unnatural faces be2
Were their owners met in the streets
their countenances would be composed.
They would be altogether free of these
distortions by which they have tried to
cheat the purpose of the police in photo
graphing them. No one would know
them then Well, that is all wrong.
The very cleverest hands at preparing a
false physiognomy for the camera have
made their grimaces in vain. The sun
has been too quick for them, and has
imprisoned the lines of the profile and the
features and caught the expression before
it could be disguised There is not
portrait here but has some marked
characteristic by which you can
identify the man who sat for it. That is
what has 10 be studied in the Rogues'
Gallery A general idea of the
looks of person derived from one of
these pictures may be very misleading.
The person himself will try to make it
so by altering his appearance. He can
grow or shave off beard or mustache,
he can change the color Of either, he may
become full-faced or lantern jawed in
time. But the skilled detective knows
all this and looks for distinguished
marks peculiar to his subject. You un-
derstaud me. 1t was a forehead drew
your attention. The lines of the fore
head would probably be a detectives
study in that burglars case. 1t did not
matter much what disguise he assumed.
That feature would remain tell tale"
'Have detectives frequently succeeded
in singing out by their portraits men
who have tried to deceive the cameras"
"Quite frequently. The very men
who have gone to the most trouble to
make their pictures useless have been
betrayed by them Look at Dutch Helm
richs there"
He pointed at the shaggy head look
ing from q frame, with the mouth dis
tended, the eyes puckered up, and a
clownish grin on the countenace that
somehow suggested some of Joe Emmet's
Autographs in Fritz"
"That is utterly unlike the look Helm
richs, the burglar, wore in everyday life.
He gave the people here quite time,
too, when he was taken, and he believed
that he had made his portrait of no use
as a means of identification; but the
forehead, the nose and the general con-
tour of the face he could not disguise,
and by that same picture he was recog-
nized and arrested. There was Pete
Luther, or Banjo Pete" as they called
him. He cut up good deal and fixed
his face for the sitting, but Inspector
Byrnes got the rights of the picture and
arrested Banjo in Philadelphia You
see that picture of Snatch Emp"
This alias was inscribed under a conf
cal bunch of features that were the face
of Meyer Stuff, the bank sneak thief
The cheeks were blown out, the eyes
were shut fast the mouth was pouting
and the forehead wrinkled. 1t seemed
hard to fancy what they would look like
in their natural shape.
"Stulf is rather fiashy and elegant
fellow, and doesn't cut any such monkey
shines with his mug in society. But for
all that he was given away by his por-
trait in spite of all his trouble. Pop
Tighe, over there, with his phiz screwed
up like nut cracker thought he could
play the sneak without any one getting
onto him from that likeness. But he
made a mistake, like the rest. So did
'Bill' Vosburg, and even Jim Reynolds,
who is grinning down from the corner
there, with his head away back and his
features all distorted, could not get the
best of the sun, and the camera caught
enough of him to satisfy his victims"
Then the pictures must not be con-
sidered merely as portraits when a Grim
inal is to be identified by them2"
''In some cases they are quite suffi-
cient. You see there is not much of
that old dodge of distorting the fea-
lures attempted nowadays. When we
have a man dead to rights, he knows
that his portrait in some shape or other
must be added te the gallery, and he is
shown that it is absurd to try and defeat
the purposes of Justice That makes
him resigned to his fate. and all our
recent artistic acquisitions are good ones.
Inspector Byrnes has made it point to
have the best we could get, for of late
photography has been an invaluable aid
to the police. In the Federal service
and in all the big cities they are follow
ing our example. But this is prob
ably the most complete criminal direc-
tory in the country. / say in some
cases, because there are numbers
of instances where a criminal appears in
public under circumstances far different
from those under which he is brought
here. There are scores of men and
women whose appearance in the streets
gives no hint to their character. Decep-
tion is their business, and they have to
study its arts carefully. 1t is true there
are criminals brought here who, even in
Gallery show weakness to appear
to advantage. ] have seen women espe-
cially whose vanity cropped out the mo
ment the muzzle of the camera was turned
on them. But that is infrequent, and
you must look for the faces you see here
in other shapes and with other accom-
naniments when Won catch sioht Of then