The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1913-11-01
Faurot--The
Detective

| In the Interesting People depart
ment in the November American
Magazine appears an entertaining ac-
count of Joseph A. Faurot, Chief OF
the New York City, detective force,
| and a scientific hunter of criminals.
Faurot is the detective who recently
caught Hans Schmidt, the New York
priest who murdered a girl, dismem-
bered her body, and threw the parts
into the Hudson River. Following is
an extract from the article:
For the first time in its history
the New York detective force found
itself with a real, scientific criminal
hunter as its chief when Detective
Captain Joseph A. Faurot was made
Acting Inspector during the graft rev.
Citations which came on the heels of
the murder of the gambler Rosenthal.
"In days gone by the detective arm
of the citys police system depended
on such men as w. p. Sheridan, the
Man with the Camera Eye as he
was called, to identify crooks. Sheri-
dan had a wonderful eye and freak
memory for faces, but there are few
men with such unusual qualifications
and the underworld has a tremendous
population that seems to grow with
each generation.
"Faurot, handsome, soft spoken
man is the American Bertillon. He
has taught New York's seven hundred
and more detectives how to pick a
face out Of the crowd by modern, SCI
entific methods. The bull as the New
York detective is known to the crooks
does not depend upon a photograph.
II the crook he is after has ever been
in the hands Of Faurot's headquart-
ers-men his Bertillon record will
show that he has one Of three kinds
of human nose, veXe, rect or cave, as
Bertillon classified them. II he has
concave nose, say then his search
is confined to faces showing that par.
ticular form of feature. All the 9TH
ers are eliminated. Then there are
only four kinds of human ears the tri-
angular, oval, square and round. Say
his crook has an oval eye. This elm
mates all those who have ears of the
other sort and brings his field down
to those who have concave noses and
oval ears. By this wedding out pro.
cess the Bertillon detective has put
| aside the thousands who have any OF
the combinations of ear and nose that
| might be made with these seven types
of features save the one combination
Of concave nose and oval ear. II one
of Faurot's scientifically taught men
lands a suspect he can check up on
him surely. The human face is di
| vided into twenty-seven sections and
in each section the Bertillon chart
will show its peculiarities The pro
| cess of elimination will gradually ex
clude every human being but this one
man, using the calculus of probabili
ties Finally nature herself comes tc
the aid Of the detective with the fin
ger prints for she has given to eacl
of us one certain individual stamI
that never changes and that canno
be changed - the rings, islands,
whorls and parabolae to be found OIL
the inner cuticle of the digits.
Chatting with him one day in tn,
Identification Bureau, the writer, WHIT
has had years of experience as Grim
inal reporter found that Faurot ha'
taken his finger prints surreptitious
| ly. The interviewer had placed hi,
hand un h blank sheet Of white pape
on the detective captains desk. Eau
rot sprinkled the white sheet will
charcoal dust and then by shifting tn,
charcoal dust carefully from side t
side brought out the finger printi
made by the most cuticle.
"Silverware, glassware, safe tum
blers, furniture and all minerals ant
metals which to the eye OF the aver
age man bear no trace Of the messag,
sometimes hold for weeks the recort
Of the hand that last touched them.