Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-12-25

Chemistry Revolutionizing
Detection of Crime
Paris, Dec 5.--A chemist, of recent
years, has become the best known
detective in France. Edmond Bayle
lie a small. dark quiet man: he works
in a modern equipped laboratory in
the Palais de Justice: he is feared
by criminals of all classes, and his
ultimate fame promises to surpass
that Alphonse Bertillon, the French
finger expert who died in 1914.
DR.. Bayle is chief Of the technical
Bureau Of the Paris Police Depart
ment. Here all the criminal informa-
ton Of the Republic is concentrated,
classified and studied. From this
bureau the expert chemist and ply
sicist gives directions in the field of
criminal detection. So successful has
he been that the ignorant criminal.
ella ses have come to regard his as q
worker in Black Magis. His unique
methods have been studied by the
police department of New York City.
DR.. Bayle rarely gives much attention
to the personality of criminals or
their particular psychology. He
works rather with material things.
His workshop consists of many
rooms and passageways, equipped
with all the paraphrenalia of a big
industrial laboratory, and includes a
photograph gallery. He has spectre
scopes. microscopes and X-ray ma
chimes by the dozen. each fitted for
a special purpose such as examining
blood spots, forged documents. coun-
terfeit money. powder burned clothes,
and the wreckage that is picked up
ON a criminal trail.
DR.. Bayle's study is lined with
books on science. and catalogue.
records of his work. In the records
of his bureau there are registered no
less than eight million names of per-
sons involved in crimes, past and
present.
1.-THE detection Of crime today is
something very different from the
popular conception said DR.. Baylc
to The Associated Press correspond
ent. "The Sherlock Holmes and Ar
sene Lupin stories of great criminals
and their feats are no doubt most en-
Pertaining, but that is all / can say
for them. From my point of view
there is no crime that cannot be de-
tected, that does not leave it's trace
behind, at least theoretically. For
one thing criminals. as a rule, are not
very intelligent. The uneducated
man usually commits crimes of pas
sion and brutality: the educated man
runs to fraud.
My methods astound the ignorant
| criminals, and they have come to fear
me when / enter the courts. The
So called intelligent professional
criminals seem to have begun to try
to thwart me, in a small way. Now
adays they endeavor, by wearing
gloves, not to leave finger prints be-
hind. but we have reached the point
where their finger prints through
gloves can be detected.
! Crime is really not very myster-
ious. The curious point to me is
that the crimes which interest me
most do not interest the public.
There has been very great prog
ress made in the detection Of crime
during the past six or eight years,
particularly through the application
| OF chemistry and photography to de-
| lection.
'In my opinion we are not vet in
sight of a crimeless civilization.
| Crime is a part of human nature.
! Much of it is spontaneous. The fear
| Of detection and punishment will not
prevent it.
Il would like to point out that part
OF our endeavor has been to help to
protect innocence, and prevent the
miscarriage Of justice. Science does
i not seek to convict. 1t looks for the
| truth. no more and no less.
During the war spy case. that
| of a certain Vigo, alias Almereyda,
| attracted much public attention. The
man was found dead in his cell. and
there were those who claimed he
| had been assassinated there. The
only evidence was two spots on his
/ shoe laces. BY comparative analysis
| of these, one l found to be mud and
| the other paint off his bed. and l was
able to conclude he had hanged him
| self and thus clear the jailers of
| guilt.
Another case: During the war a
| young captain wrote his mother the
| night before battle in which he was
killed. A postscript to the letter re-
voked a former will in favor of his
wife. BY analysis of the ink and the
handwriting in this postscript, 1t was
shown that the mother had forged his
signature. She confessed it. though
her confession added nothing to the
value of the proof.
| 1--WE are beginning to eliminate
eye -witness proof in crime. We pre-
fer our own, as eye-witnesses dis
| tort the facts without sometimes
wishing to. Science cannot lic.'