The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-07-08
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN. Director.
Washington. D. C.
WANTED: A SHERLOCK HOLMES.

Z
= = - :
WANTED: 4 SHERLOCK HOLMES.
New York. July IA wealthy
sportsman who is a man of many fir
tatiohs is found seated in an armchair
of his house with bullet hole thru his
brain. The whole town is agog. All
! of its detective braiHs are at work on
| the problem, and all of its best news
! paper talent is following them and
| recording their every move. Yet
after weeks of hard work. scarcely to
! he excelled for thorone6s. no arrest
iETad been made when this was written.
4 The mystery may be ultimately
! solved, but if it is not, it will take its
! place as one of a long list of unsolved
/ murder mysteries. 1t is true the
! police capture "a large percentage of
murderers. but il iSsalso true that the
/ total number of such mysteries which
\ are never solved is very large. And of
these unsolved murder mysteries you
I will note that a great many of them
have one thing in common: they are
| not murders committed for the pur-
/ pose of robbery. This means that they
are not the work of professional crini-
| nails, but of normal and ordinary law
abiding men who have been driven to
crime by some high passion such as
/ jealousy, revenge, or outraged honor.
/ These facts suggest that while our
1
fective in catching professional crimi-
nails, they are often helpless when con-
/ fronted with the work of a man who
/ is a criminal only by chance IA
study of modern detective methods
tends strongly to bear out this idea.
+; If you study these methods you will
find that they are nothing like, the
sEethOds of the detectives of fiction,
such as Sherlock Holmes of Conan
/ Doyle's Stories, and the Dupin of Poe's
imaginary gentlemen worked by logic.
/ They depended for their success upon
| a grasp of motive and character.
/ They worked out what is popularity
called the personal equation. And
these fictive detectives were no doubt
based to some extent upon detectives
who had worked in real life before the
development of crime detection as a
! science.
Poe as a Detective.
These fiction detectives have been
much ridicuIcd because. it is said.
such methods as they used are not
used by real detectives. It is true that
| they are not used BY modern detec-
| tiNes, but it is not so certain that they
could not be SO used. Poe, in has IA
nous story THE Murder of Marie
Roget" took a famous murder mys-
terry which happened in New York,
changed the name of the girl and re-
moved the scene Of crime to Paris.
He then wrote his story, using the
facts of the crime just as they were.
and he made out very convincing
case to the effect that all of the de-
tectives were working on the wrong
clue. He also pointed out very con-
vincingly what was probably the right
clue. He showed that the detectives
were wasting their time in almost in
discriminate questioning Of persons
who had been near the scene of the
lori in, 4Ia inv loot Of "a
scene itself and the articles found
there. He showed that by studying
the girls character and associations,
by constructing a picture of her life,
the man who had killed her could be
discovered if at all.
If Poe were alive. the Elwell MUIR
der would furnish him with precisely
another such opportunity. For here
again the detectives have been buzz
ing busily about the scene of the
crime. They have discovered price
less facts as that ElWell bought a
he paid a taxi driver seventy-five
cents to take him home, and that he
had removed his false teeth when he
was shot. They have compiled a cata-
log of his flirtations. But, as far as
one can judge by reading the news
papers, they have failed to study the
mans life as a whole, with a view to
discovering the points of contact
which could have given 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 presumptive
to sit in a chair and tell other people
how the thing ought to be done. But
tit is everyOne's' privilege to speculate
about a great crime, and we are going
to have our fling at it
Catch Professional Criminals.
The significant thing to be Drought
out is that the modern science of
crime detection is directed almost
wholly to the capture of the profess
sional criminal, and tends to break
down when confronted with a non
professional crime.
Modern detective methods have
been highly perfected in Europe, and
most of them have been to some eX-
tent imported to this country, espe-
cially to New York. The basis of
them is Identification. The profess
sional criminal commits more than 80
per cent of all crime. He is usually
an abnormal who cannot do other
wise. and who goes on stupidity COM
hitting one crime after another. He
is arrested, serves a term during which
he makes plans. then goes out and
commits another crime and is arrested
again. 1t is an endless and stupid
process. The only intelligent solution
Of the problem, as Judge Olson has
pointed out, is to provide some per-
manent. means of segregating these
abnormals, so that they cannot COM
nit any more crimes nor breed any
more criminals. But that is another
story
The chief result of the present sys-
tenn is that practically all profess
sional criminals are known to the
police system. The accurate identifi-
cation of them has been erected into
remarkably complete science. Every
criminal caught is identified by his
picture, by either mis- finger prints or
his Bertfllon measurements. or both.
Two-thirds of all the criminals taken
have been arrested before. Therefore.
when a crime is committed by a pro-
fessional criminal, the problem is most