Morning journal and courier., 1890-07-16
TO IDENTIFY oRIMINALS. By Measuring the Head, She Foot, tho Middle Finger and the Forearm to the Elbow.


 From the London Times.
 Last evening M. Jacques Der tillon (head of the Municipal Bureau of Statistics in Paris) delivered lecture before the Anthropologi- cal Institute of Great Britain and Ireland on the method now practiced in France of iden- tifying criminals by comparing their meas- ures with those of convicted persons in the prison registers. MT. Francis Galton, F. R, S., presided.
 M. Bertillon said that the system which he had come there to explain was an essentially practical one. It had for its object the rso- ognition of a person ten, fifteen, twenty, or even one hundred years after he had been measured, for by that method it was possi. ble to recognize person after death, if 60. cess could be had to his skeleton. In Paris, been collected by the police 1t was impossi- ble to turn them to profitable account. Pho- togrophy was now, therefore, rslegated to @ secondary position, and only used as an aid to identification established by other means. The basis of the anthropometric system was to obtain measurements of those bony parts of the body which underwent little or no change after maturity, and could be msas- ured with extreme accuracy to within 50 small @ figure as to be practically exact. These parts were the head, the foot, the mid dle finger and the extended forearm from the elbow.
 To clearly illustrate the system let them suppose ninety thousand photographs of men to have been collected. These would be di- vided into three groups of thirty thousand, according to the height of the men. There would be short men, men of medium height and tall men. That these three classes might be approximately equal, 1t was evi- dent that the limits of men of medium height must be restricted more than those of the other two classes. Each of these prima. ry divisions should again be divided on the same principle, without taking any further notice of the height, into three classes, &C., cording to the length of the head of each inc dividusl. The three classes of short, medi- um and long heads would each again be sub. divided into three, according to the width of the heads, and would contain narrow, medi- um and wide heads. Experience has proved that with most people the breadth of tho head varied independently of the length- that was, that given that an individual had certain length of head, 1t by no means fol- lowed that the breadth of his head could be determined priori.
 The length of the middle finger gave c fourth and still more precise indication by which to divide again each one of the pack cts of photographs; and these might be dis vided again according to the length of the foot, the length of the arms outstretched at AAkdo oASh0o 9O eho OO0yS ohA 0.oS aSS~AAAA6 | to the color of the eyes. Thus by these an- | thropometrical oo-eficients they would be able to divide their collection of ninety thousand photographs into very small groups of about fifteen each, which they could easi- ly and rapidly examine.
 M. Bertillon then proceeded to give prac- tical demonstration of the way in which the measurements were taken. The instruments employed by him were simple, but very ac- curate in their construction, and the meas. urements were taken with great exaotitude. The lecturer explained that the instrument for measuring the head was so accurate that the measurement could be taken to within one millimetre. It had been found by exps- rience that the length of tho heads of differ- ent individuals differed more than three cen- timetres (say millimetres.) It was admitted that we had no power to lengthen our heads, and it was we'll known that the skulis devel' oped very little after an individual had ar- rived at maturity. With our stature 1t was not the same, for as years passed by we be- came bent, and our height became less; be- sides, 1t was possible to cheat to the extent of two centimetres without its being discov- cred by the operator. As an instance ot the exactitude with which these measurements were taken, the lecturer stated that three American gentlemen had visited his brother in France and requested him to measure them in order to test the accuracy of msas- ursments made in Chi6ago, and t was found thnt tho maaaHEoueptg eaxyo9pQn0eq @ the,