The Washington bee., 1908-10-10
There's No Use Saying You
Are Somebody Else.
REMARKABLE GIFT
The Chief OF the Bureau of Identifi-
cation Of the Metropolitan Police
, Department Is the Terror Of Habit
ual CrIminaIs-Aliases and Dis
Ruises Are of No Avail.

GOIQ, Lnht luSy are uudUlS 70 point
TO q single mistake made by him in
awenty-two years of service the state
melt is sufficiently remarkable to
cause comment. There are few of
whom II can be said with truth.
Yet there is a man In the Police
Department OF New York. who for
that length of time has been identi-
fying crooks by dint of his wonderful
memory, and Inspector McCafferty
or any one of his $50 sleuths will
tell you that If Lieut.. William Sheri-
dams memory ever played him false
they never heard OF 1t. II is re-
ltted of Lieut. Sheridan, detective,
that he saw q picture twenty-One
years ago, without ever setting eyes
OF the original. and corrected the
policeman who made the arrest as
10 the identity of a man locked up
IN Raymond Street Jail. The ar
resting policeman had long ago
forgotten. He went to the Jail and
had an hours talk with the prisoner.
Then he came away declaring that
for once Sheridan was talking
through his hat" Subsequently the
man himself, brought before the
committing Magistrate for sentence
said:
This man Sheridan is a stranger
\ to me, but whoever he is he is all
right. I am the man he says l am
n That was Sheridan's most remark
&ble feat, and IL is a long time ago
since il happened, but after that be
Rstonished his associates many times
until they ceased to wonder and &C
eepted his tricks of memory as some
thing that we're to be depended on
when all else failed.
In 1885 Sheridan joined the New
York police force and on July l,
1887, he became one of Tom ByTne's
detectives. One day Byrnes called
Sheridan into his office just after roll
call in the morning.
Little feller," he said-that was
N his name for the detective read
this over" and he tossed him a copy
9f q morning newspaper. 1t was an
account of theft of $165, 900 from
the National Park Bank Dy its as
sistant cashier and his subsequent
disappearance.
81 want you to get after that
man." ordered the chief. Don't
come back here until you find him. !"
Sheridan went out and Headquarters
did not see him again for six months.
He returned with the assistant cash
Ter. He had found him in an out
of-tne-way place known as "tanstead,
8 Can, twenty miles from the county
seat, t. which he took him on
freight train.
Ten years later Sheridan and his
wife were staying at a Washington
3 hotel There was a clerk behind
the counter whose face was familiar
8 IL was the former assistant cashier.
4 T4e detective greeted him. II don't
know you" said the clerk. Here's
my bill. LOOK at the name and see
s If you recognize ii" replied Sheri-
dan. You've changed a lot in ten
years, but I recognize you" The
clerk looked at Sheridan's name and
1 at once recalled the man who had ar
6 rested him.
As head o. the Identification Bu
reau Sheridan has charge of all
s. the photographs of criminals filed
away In the Rogue's Gallery There
are thousands and thousands OF
khese, the collections of many years.
Sheridan looks at the photograph
once, put 1t away and thinks no more
of it until the man is arrested again.
A new photograph is taken. Per
haps the man wears beard this
time Maybe he has discarded his
tupee and mustache and grown whis-
kers. The sharp eyes OF the little
man In the outer room of the Detec-
tive Bureau penetrates the disguise
at once.
DO you know him?" asks Nc
Cafferty.
Sure" says Sheridan, that's so
hid so, who served eight years in
Lannemora.''
"AlI right says the inspector.
He never asks Sheridan if he is sure.
He knows he is.
The Identification chief is the
court Of last resort. An old crook
with record long buried may pass
the line Of $50 sleuths at morning
lineup without one of them recalling
his face-and to make themselves
familiar with the faces of crooks is
their business, He may even fool
the BertillOn experts who go by
measurements only, accurate as
they are. But he never gets by the
identification Bureau That's why
all crooks, big and little, would
rather enter the lions cage at Bronx
Park than go into that little room in
1.-The rear of the Police Headquarters
building to submit to the scrutiny
of "the man with the camera eyes, &"
whose brain might be said to be
honeycombed with pigeonholes in
each one of which there is a face
properly tagged just like the pictures
D khe gallery. A very keen pair of
eyes has Sheridan. They seem to