Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-07-07
Wanted: A Sherlock Holmes
BY Frederic j. Haskiu

IOuDu seated In IN armcNalr Of MS mouse
with bullet hole through bis brain. The
whole town is ngog. All Of It's detective
brains are at work on the problem, and
all its best newspaper talent is following
them and recording their every move.
Yet after weeks Of hard work, scarcely
TO be cxcelcd for thoroughness, no arrest
had been made when this was written.
The mystery may be ultimately solved !,
but il il is not. il will take its pIacc IA one
| OF long list of 1nsolved murder mvs-
tcries II is true the police capture large
percentage of murdcrcrs but IL is also true
| the total number of such mysteries which
are never solved is very large And Of
| these unsolved murder mvstelIes you will
| note that n great many Of them have one
| thing in common: they are not murders
committed for the purpose of robbery
This means that they are not the work of
professional criminals, but ~ normal and
ordinarily law-abiding men who have been
driven TO crime by some high passion
such as jealousy, reverge or outraged
honor.
These facts suggest that, while our
police and detective systems are effective
in catching professional criminals, they
are often helpless when confronted with
the work Of man who is criminal only
by chance. A study OF modern detective
methods tends strongly to bear out this
idea. II you study these methods YOU will
find that they are nothing like the methods
OF the detectives of fiction, such as Sher-
lock Holmes Of Conan Doyle's stories, and
the Dupin of Pocs Murders in the Rue
Morgue." These mag nary gentlemen
worked by logic. They depended for their
success upon grasp of motive and char
acter. They worked out what is popular
~ called the personal equation. And these
hctive detectives were no doubt based 10
some extent upon detectives who had
worked in real life before the development
Of crime detection as science.
roE AZ A DETECTIVE.
Thcse fiction detectives have been much
ridiculed because, il is said, such methods
as they used are not used by real detectives
II is true that they are not used by modern
detectives, but Il Is not SO certain that
they could not be so used. Poe, IN his
famous story, THE Murder Of Marie
Roget" took famous murder mystery
which happened in New York, changed
the name Of the girl and removed the
scene of crime 30 Paris. He then wrote
his story, using the facts Of the crime Just
~ they were, and he made ont n very
convincing case 20 the effect that all Of
the detectives were working ON the wrong
clue. lie also pointed out very convincing
~ what WIS probably the right Clue. He
showed that the detectives were wasting
their time in almost indIscrimrnntc ut,es-
ti6ning of persons who had been near the
scene of the crime, and in the investigat-
np of the scene itself and the articles
found there He showed that by study
ing the girls character and associations,
by construct ting picture of her life, the
man who had killed her could be discover
ed If at all.
II Poe were alive, the Elwell murder
would furnish him with precisely another
snch opportunity. For here again the de-
tectves have been buzzing busily about
the scene Of the crime. They have dis
covered priceless facts as that Elwel
bought n paper Just before he was killed
that he paid taxi driver eventy-frve
cents to take hum home, and that he had
removed hrs false teeth when he was
shot They have compiled catalogue
of hia hIrtattons. But asf far a. one can
Judge by reading the newspapers, they
have failed tn study the mans life as a
whole, with view to discovering the points
of contact which could have gwen rise
To such crime of violence. This is the
thing that Sherlock Holmes or Dupin
would have done, as soon as the scene
of the crime had definitely failed TO Yield
a promising clue.
No doubt it is highly presumptsve 20
sit in chair and tell other people how the
thing ought TO be done, But IL is everyone
privilege TO speculate about great
crime, and we are going TO have our
fling at IT.
CATCH PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS
The significant thing TO be brought
out IS that the modern science Of crime
detection is directed almost wholly TO the
capture of the professional criminal, and
tends to break down when confronted
with non-professional crime.
Modern detective methods have been
highly perfected in Europe, and most
of them have been TO some extent i'm
ported to this country, especially 10 New
York. The basis of them is Identification.
The professional criminal commits more
than ninety per cent OF all crime. He Is
usually an abnormal who cannot do
otherwise, and who goes on stupidity
committing one crime after another. He
is arrested, serves term during which
he makes plans then goes out and COM
mits another crime and rs arrested again.
Ii is an endless and stupid process The
only intelligent solution OF the problem,
as Judge Olson has pointed out, Is to
provide some permanent means of segre-
eating these abnormals, so that they can
not commit any more crimes nor breed
any more criminals But that is another
story.
The chief result of the present system
is that practically all professional crirn-
inals are known to the police system.
The accurate Identification of them has
been erected INTO remarkably complete
science. Every criminal caught Is identified
by his picture, by either his finger prints or
his Bertillon measurements, or both |
Two-thirds of all the criminals taken have
been arrested before. Therefore, when q
crime is committed by a professional
criminal, the problem is most often one of !
finding his identity and then finding the |
man. This process has also been erected |
into high science. II the criminal leaves !
finger prints on the window sill or the |
door knob or on the handle of a revolver.
he is very apt to be identified In a few |
hours. In one case In Europe the man left /
nothing but a few hairs sticking to a |
cap. These hairs were studied IN the labo- !
ratories which are part of really up |
to-date detective system, and they showed |
that he was a vigorous man partly bald !
with gray hair. This clue led to his capture. |
A little dust, foot print, the method /
of entering locked room, or of committing !
the crime all have been clues that haya 1