Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-15

of nearly 10000 criminals. OF course,
some of them have died, and others
have reformed, but it is still coInpre-
hensive enough to embrace about every
notorious individual in the Un1teu
States and Canada, and most OF tne
great international criminals as We'll
So far as the past is concerned its rec
ords are very full. But 1t is not the
old offenders that give the police de-
partments the most trouble. They are
aware that the photographs OF these
their Bertillon measurements, and their
finger-prints, perhaps, are accessible TO
the police everywhere. But not so with
the new crop of criminals Whlch
amounts to hundreds every year. 1t is
in an effort to acquaint the police OF
North America with them that most or
the energy of the bureau Is exercised.
Every now and then Maj. Richard
Sylvester, superintendent of the Wash
ington police force, and president or
the International association, whose
work at Inauguration time always COM
mands national commendation, issues
little book that the public at large never
sees. 1t goes to police headquarters IN
the various cities of the country, ana
contains the pictures and descriptions
of about 200 recruits to the ranks of
notorious and dangerous criminals. This
album is carefully studied wherever 1t
goes, as in 1t are the names OF those
whom 1t will be profitable for the whole
police world to watch during many
coming years.
There is no other point in human ex-
istence where the battle of wit is so
sharp as where meet the criminal and
the guardians of the law. For every
repressive measure that society is able
to adopt, the forger, the bank robber,
and the porch climber has a Roland
for it's oliver When effectively shut
off in one direction, they have been able
to break through the precautions
against them in another, so that today
it is as much of a nip-anetuck race
between the thief and those who would
suppress him as ever it was.
It has been estimated by criminal
expert who had his statistics printed
by congressional authority that crime
costs the people of the United States
$780, 900, 900 a year. The way he arrives
at this conclusion Is interesting. He
starts out by estimating that the cities
and counties of the country spend $780,
900, 900 year in the prevention and pun
ishment of crime. The state and ma
tional governments spend $4,000
900 more. Ee reckons that there are
100, 900 criminals in the United States,
and that their stealings when at liber-
ty, and loss of time when in prison,
have an aggregate value of $400,OOO,0OO.
He places about one-ha'f of all the
criminals on the list of habituals.
His estimate of the number Of crimi-
nails is probably under the mark. Ac-
cording to census retur~ there are ap-
proximately 80 900 prisoners In the penal
institutions of the country, and that
takes no account of those in the re-
formatories and other corrective insti-
tutions. The number Of crimes which
go unpublished is almost as great as
the number for which justice is meted
out, so that If the per capita figures of
the expert be correct the whole cost Of
crime in the United States is consid-
erablv above the figures given above.
Add to this the proportionate cost in
Canada and Mexico, and the total for
North America would not be far from
billion dollars a year.
There are now about one hundred
cities in the United States and Canada
which use the Bertillon method of Grim
inal identification. This constitutes
photographs in three positions, meas
urements of a number of unchanging
characteristics OF the body, notation of
all scars, deformities and other pecul-
iarities. There are seventy police or
ganizatlons belonging to the Interna-
tional Association of Police Chiefs and
they all send these identifications to
the Identification bureau at Washing
ton More than 1000 photographs are
received there each year and over 400
identifications of criminals result from
it's activities.
The Bertillon method is the child of
the brain of French ethnologist now