The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) 1901-1902, 1901-08-25
MYSTERIES OF IDENTITY.

MYSTERIES OF IDENTITY.
strange Cases Which Have Lons
Puzzled Police and Scientists.
| The announcement made in the publ
| journals that an interesting case of dis
| puted identity connected with a charg
of murder was lately Investigated at Col
| chester revives a subject of extreme in
| terest not only to the public, but equal.
| to the medical man and the law. Ques
| tons of personal identity have Away!
| possessed fascination for the novelist
as well as for the chronicler of causes o.
legal kind. Certainly, if We are to judg'
by the records of Jurisprudence of the diff
fculties which often attend the establish
ment CT the identity of the living, and o.
the dead still more, the settlement of tbs
why's who" point is apt to be one Of
highly complex nature. Miss Braddor
in Henry Dunbar" uses the identity
question as the pivot of the story. jaime:
Payn wrote a novel which had for its bur
den the same idea. and the fertile brains
OF other romancers have utilized the like
ness of one being to another as the cruz
of the situations they depict.
But in real life, as l have said, there is
as much that is startling to be found
when questions of Identity have to be
threshed out in our courts OF law. Seem
ingly easy AID simple conditions OF set
ting the pers onality of an individual are
often suppianted by difficulties arising on
the one hand from likeness to somebody
else and on the other from varying testi-
mony of witnesses. The feature which
appeals to one person is missed by an
other. and so the conflict Of evidence con-
tinues. The Tichborne case offers an apt
illustration of this fact Omitting the evil
dence of those whose IT terests were bound
up with the claimants case, there re-
mains certain amount Of testimony.
honest enough in its nature, which assert
ed it's belief that he was Roger T1chborne.
The classic case OF Lesurques and Dubosc,
dramatized in the Lyons MAIL is m
other illustration which had CHASTITY
ending OF tricks which the irony OF fate
may play with condolences.
There was a case tried not very long
ago in London, where a man was charged
with bigamy. He married a Brighton lady
under a certain name, say A. and 1t was
alleged he was really B. a married Lon
doner. The case hinged round the ques-
ton of identity, OF course. and. though
the jury ulsdSrteu, IL tiilSldht hui, a.
the first trial, the evidence that A and B
We're one and the same man satisfied a
second jury, who duly convicted him. In
such cases, Of course, It is the facts Of
residence, travel. appearance at a given
time at a given spot, and so forth, which
make or mar the case of the accused
seeing that nobody has yet been able to
emulate the dexterity Of Sir Boyle Roche's
IA rr1o bird I,tOl har he
mist was one said to be man called
Stuart, who was charged at the Old Ball
ey in 1894 with being an escaped convict.
His identity with Stuart was sworn to by
the goal governor and the guard Of the
convict-hulk. But Stuart said his name
was StipIer. and denied that he was the
missing prisoner. It was mentioned in
evidence that Stuart had a wen on his
left hand. This wen, therefore. must have
still been present or the scar left by an
operation which removed it. Happily, Mr..
Carpue, famous surgeon, was in court.
He heard the evidence regarding the wen
and gave his testimony that the presence
of either the wen or the scar would settle
the mater. The prisoner showed neither
and was duly acquitted.
In the case of the dead identity Is hard
er to establish than in the living. Death
often alters the aspect so deeply that Or
binary evidence is apt to fail in settling
the disputed point Many a dead man
has been identified even by wife as
certain individual, while a few days later
the supposed dead person has walked into
his house. Where science steps In to
solve problems of identity is in cases
where possibly only fragmentary portions
of a body have been found and where a
body has to be Reconstructed" as they
say in France, when the scene and de-
tails of crime are reproduced for the
particular benefit of the accused person.
In the Wainwright case science was able
to declare the identity of Harriet Lane,
the victim, in this way.
The Waterloo bridge murder of 1857 Is
another celebrated example of the recon-
stitution of the individual Here, from
the mutilated remains found in a carpet
bag on one Of the piers of the bridge, the
experts were able to show that the VIC
tim was a man of between thirty and
forty years of age, about five feet nine
inches in height OF dark complexion and
killed by stab between the third and
fourth ribs on the left side. The fate of
Court Fosco in THE Woman in White
was believed by many to represent the
end of the Waterloo bridge victim.
Sometimes things are complicated
through purely accidental circum-
stances. Here is case In point.
On August 10. 1881, an old woman, Caro-
.ne Walsh by name. from Kilkenny went
to stay with one Elizabeth Ross and her
husband in Goodman's Fields. London.
After that evening all trace of Caroline
Walsh disappeared. Mrs Ross was ar
rested and charged with her murder. But
the defence alleged that a Caroline Welsh
also an Irish woman. who had been con-
veyed on August 20 to the London hospi-
tai. where she died few days later. was
he missing woman. Caroline Walsh had
L basket containing the tapes and other
articles she sold. but so had Caroline
Welsh. So far the identity appeared to
favor the defence, but closer scrutiny
showed the flaws in the plea. Caroline
Walsh was a clean. tidy woman, aged
,ighty-four. with grey hair and with peer
feet front teeth. Caroline Welsh was a
iirty, emaciated woman, aged sixty. and
Ill her front teeth had disappeared. Again,
while Walsh came from Kilkenny IL was
discovered that Welsh was a native of
Waterford. The defence broke down, es-
,ecially as evidence was forthcoming that
Walsh had been murdered and her body
sold for anatomical purposes. Mrs Ross
)aid the penalty of her crime.-Chicago
Chronicle.
The Laugh on whOmf