Victorian CSI Page 3

  Tattoo markings may be removed artificially; but if the pigment be deep in the skin, a cicatrix will be left in the spot where the marks existed. An experiment was made by Tardieu on a prisoner who had a crucifix tattooed with Indian ink on his forearm. After several applications of acetic acid, potash, and hydrochloric acid, a crust fell off at the end of fourteen days, leaving only a flat scar, without a trace of the original design. Escharotics will, of course, cause the disappearance of tattoo marks; but their place will be indicated by a permanent scar, sunk more or less below the level of the skin. The claimant in the Tichborne case had such a scar above the left wrist; and he had a very peculiar one on the left shoulder, which several insertions of vaccine matter at points equi-distant would be likely to produce. This scar occupied the place of the issue of three years’ standing which Roger Tichborne had on the left shoulder; and it is therefore probable that it was intended to represent it.

  Of tattoo marks, then, we may say that most of them are indelible; some disappear partially; a few entirely; and that if, in a dead body, these marks have disappeared, the colouring matter may be found in the nearest lymphatic glands.

  Identification by photographs.—Photographs may mislead when used to represent the whole figure, inasmuch as the limbs, hands, and feet are not all in focus. But they may render great service when we are dealing with the fixed features of the face though the expression is less to be relied upon, for it is not quite the same in any two photographs taken by the same artist. Even these may vary according as they are in light or in shadow. In the Tichborne case photographs of Roger Tichborne, of the Claimant, and of members of the Orton family were all used at the trial, and served to show that the Claimant’s face differed widely from that of Roger Tichborne taken twenty years before, and also that the Claimant bore a nearer resemblance to members of the Orton family than to Roger.*

  We will indicate some of the obvious uses of photographs.

  1. The eyes.—The colour of the eyes and the direction of the line which joins the inner to the outer canthus, as well as the relative position and shape of the brows, are correctly indicated by photographs. Light blue and grey eyes print light, and hazel and brown eyes have a darker tint. By lines drawn through the inner and outer angles of the eyes and made to meet in the median line, we can determine whether the eyes have an upward or downward direction. All these points are well illustrated by the photographs produced in the Tichborne case. The iris in the upper of the two figures (Fig. 1), by its light tint, confirms the evidence of the witnesses that the eyes of Roger were blue, while that of the lower figure, by its uniform dark colour, corresponds with the dark slate colour of the eye of the Claimant. In this same figure the lines drawn through the corners of the eyes indicate by their upward and downward direction a very important difference between the two persons. The photographs also show marked differences in the eyebrows. Those of Roger Tichborne are wide apart and singularly well defined, while those of the Claimant are much nearer together and of ill-defined outline.

  FIG. 1.

  2. The ears.—There are certain peculiarities in the ear, which may be deemed decisive. One of them consists in the absence of a pendulous lobe, and the firm adhesion of the point to the angle of the jaw; a second, in smallness or largeness of size; a third, in its direction relatively to the profile of the face; a fourth, in the rounded or angular outline, and the relative size and shape of its component parts. With the exception of the lobe of the ear, none of these peculiarities admit of being changed by any manipulation, such as the use of weights or tension, and it is well known that that part is not greatly altered as the body grows and fattens. If artificial means were used to lengthen the lobe, they could not fail to be detected. The differences between the ears of Roger and the Claimant afford evidence which it is no exaggeration to term “startling.” The ear of the Claimant is longer by one-third, the greater length being largely due to the detached pendulous lobe, which in Roger Tichborne did not exist. The dotted lines make the difference between the two ears very apparent Judging by the published photographs, the ear of the Claimant closely resembles in size and shape that of George Orton, senior, and in size that of George Orton, junior.

  FIG. 2.

  3. The nose and mouth.—These features, taken separately and together, admit of very marked contrasts. This fact, too, is well illustrated by the photographs produced in the Tichborne case. The nose of the Claimant, with which the lips may be said to harmonise, is “a narrow one in a fat face;” that of Roger “a broad one, with inflated nostrils, in a thin face.” The central groove which joins the nose to the upper lip, is narrow in the Claimant, wide in Roger—a difference well shown by the dotted circles in the figures. The two mouths are also quite different in character. The comparison, then, which these photographs enable us to institute between the face of Roger and that of the Claimant leaves no possible room for doubt that the actual personal appearance of the Claimant is not such as Roger Tichborne could have presented after the lapse of twenty years.

  FIG. 3.

  Identification by stature and girth.—In the Tichborne case these points came into play. Arthur Orton’s Register Ticket, issued when he was 18, shows that he was 5 feet 9½ inches in his shoes, or 5 feet 9 inches in his stockings. The Claimant, carefully measured in his stockings in prison, was also 5 feet 9 inches. If, then, Arthur Orton stopped growing at 18, he and the Claimant might be one and the same person. But as men, one with another, grow two inches by the time they reach 30, there is a strong probability in favour of Orton having grown taller, and therefore against the Claimant and Orton being one and the same. In the case of Roger Tichborne, the Carabineer, the stature and girth of the chest were also put in evidence.

  Identification by wounds.—In January 1846, when freshly-fallen snow was on the ground, a robbery was committed at Stigny, in the house of two old men. Next morning several spots of blood were seen on the floor on the left of a chest of drawers which the robbers had forced. Other spots were found on the snow in the direction taken by the robbers when they quitted the house, and always on the left hand of the footsteps. A shred of membrane was found on the road, which proved to be skin. On searching the neighbourhood, a man was found with his left hand wounded. Dr. Lemoine and M. Cœurderoi were appointed to examine him; and they agreed that the wound was probably inflicted about the date of the robbery, and that the piece of skin, judging from its size and shape, had formerly covered the injured part. The accused confessed the crime. (“Annales d’Hygiène,” Jan. 1847.)

  Alteration in the colour of the hair.—The question whether hair can be turned from dark to light was raised in Paris in 1832, on the occasion of the trial of one Bénoit for murder. Certain witnesses deposed to having seen him in Paris at 2 P.M. with black hair; white others declared that they saw him at Versailles, at 5 or 6 o’clock the same evening, with fair hair. The colour of the man’s hair was jet black, and it does not appear that he wore a wig. The tribunal consulted Orfila, and Michalon, a leading hairdresser of Paris, as to the possibility of changing the hair from dark to light. Michalon replied in the negative; but Orfila stated that as early as the year 1806 Vauquelin had read at the Institute a mémoire on the property chlorine has of giving to black hair all the lighter colours, and even of bleaching it.

  This case led to careful experiments by Orfila, and subsequently by Devergie. Orfila examined the mode of turning the hair from light to dark, from dark to light, and from light-red or chestnut to other shades of colour. Devergie limited himself to the verification of Orfila’s experiments on the effect of chlorine.

  Change from dark to light.—The results of numerous experiments made by Orfila and Devergie with solutions of chlorine may be thus summed up. Black hair is changed to various shades of chestnut, blond, yellow, and yellowish-white, by being steeped or washed, a longer or shorter time, in solutions of chlorine of different strengths. Less marked effects are produced by combing the hair with that fluid. The chlorine is readily detected by
its odour, even after washing the hair as many as fifty times with water; while the tint is peculiar, by no means uniform, and not easily confounded with any natural colour; and the hair itself is hard, stiff, and brittle. Better results are obtained with nitric and nitro-muriatic acid, which, diluted with 50 times their bulk of water, impart a golden tinge to dark hair, without apparently injuring its texture. Peroxide of hydrogen has also been largely employed by hairdressers for this purpose. All these processes occupy time; and the fraud is easily detected by chemical tests; by allowing the hair to grow or even by stripping the person, and comparing the hair of the head with that of other parts; but the fact must not be overlooked that frequently considerable difference in colour naturally exists.

  Change from light to dark.—The following methods have been adopted:—

  a. Charcoal and grease.—This soils the fingers; and on placing a lock of the hair in hot water, the grease swims, and the charcoal falls to the bottom.

  b. Salts of bismuth, lead, and silver.—The hair, freed from its oil by liquor ammonise, is moistened with a solution of one or other of these salts, and then, for a quarter of an hour, with sulphuretted hydrogen water. The black sulphides thus formed may be detected by steeping a lock of the hair in dilute nitric acid, and testing for the base. More than one of our photographic processes would effect the same change.

  A mixture of litharge, chalk, and lime, in nearly equal proporturns, dissolved in water (the Tinctura Pompeiana of the shops) was found very effectual. The hair was kept moist with it for three or four hours, and then allowed to dry. The chalk and oxide of lead were next removed with dilute acetic acid, and, lastly, the hair was rubbed with yolk of egg. The colour of the hair was thus effectually changed without injury to its texture. By steeping a lock of the hair in dilute nitric acid, the chalk is dissolved with effervescence, and with the lead converted into a soluble nitrate. Nitrates of calcium and lead remain in solution.

  The hair undergoes marked change of colour in the course of some processes of manufacture. In turning rollers, for instance, out of the wood known as “green ebony,” light hair assumes a green tint; a similar change results from working in an atmosphere containing finely-divided copper.

  The effect of sudden and violent emotions of fright and grief in turning the hair grey has been much disputed, although numerous instances have been quoted, of these Mary Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette may be mentioned; a like change may be produced by disease and other causes which are somewhat obscure. In a case related by Dr. Gordon Smith, a complete change of colour in the hair of the whole body took place in a single night in a girl 13 years of age, without previous indisposition or emotion; and Dr. Anstie (“Neuralgia and its Counterfeits,” p. 94) has shown that, during attacks of facial neuralgia, the eyebrows and hair of the side affected sometimes turn grey, and even white, but resume their usual colour when the pain ceases. These changes in the colour of the hair are sometimes permanent, but the colour may in other cases be restored. When the hair of the head is the seat of the change, it is sometimes limited to certain portions only.

  Identification by footprints.—It often happens that footprints are found on the soil, or the mark of a blood-stained foot on the floor of the spot where a bloody assault or a murder has been committed; and it may be of importance to compare the marks with the naked feet or shoes of the person suspected of the crime. As regards prints of the naked foot in the soil, a question naturally arises as to whether they can be taken as exact measurements of the foot itself, inasmuch as they must needs vary with the position and pressure of the foot and the character of the soil. But when the impression is that of a foot resting firmly on a tenacious soil, a comparison with the foot of the suspected person may be made with confidence; for it is highly improbable that the foot should yield the same mould in any two persons. When the feet of a suspected person present some notable peculiarity or deformity, the inference drawn from the comparison with the print gains greatly in force. Marks* of different size and shape are made by the same foot in running, walking, and standing. This shows the necessity of carefully comparing the impressions left on the soil with those made by the suspected person under similar conditions. In order to preserve footprints for future reference, it has been recommended by Hugoulin to heat the footprints with a hot iron, or chafing-dish, and dust powdered stearic acid over them. The hot iron or chafing-dish should be reapplied after each addition of the powdered stearic acid, and in this way the imprint is stiffened and preserved, and available for identification for an indefinite period.

  Footprints in snow may be preserved by taking a plaster cast from an impression of them in gelatine.

  The marks of naked feet on floors may require to be cat out for future reference.

  The impressions left by shoes must be treated with like caution; but the original form of the shoe, aided in some instances by the position of patches or nails, may afford very important and even conclusive evidence, as in a case related by Sir Walter Scott, in which the murderer of a poor imbecile girl was discovered and identified by the marks of the shoes of the culprit left on the clay floor of the cottage during the death struggle.

  Mind and memory.—In the Tichborne case, as in that of Martin Guerre (p. 47), questions relating to the mental faculties, and especially the memory, played an important part. In the first-named case considerations based on the facts brought out at the trial are at least as conclusive against the Claimant as the person, stature, and physical marks. The life the Claimant led in Australia was not such as to raise the question of the possible effect of hardship and exposure, whether on body or mind. There was no emaciation of body, but the very reverse, and no failure of mental power. He laid claim to an excellent memory, and the most plausible parts of his case depended on its exercise; and the fact of his using this, his good memory, whenever its employment promoted his views, proved his glaring mis-statements as to matters in which he had received no instructions from others to have been the simple result of ignorance. The same memory that claimed to recollect the name of a dog, or the number of a trooper’s horse, could not have failed when tested with the Christian names of hips, mother, the handwriting of his father, his place of birth, his Paris residences, the companions of his childhood and youth, the college where he was educated, the studies he pursued, the examinations he passed, the relatives in whose houses he was always a welcome guest, the agent with whom he was in constant correspondence, the lawyer who made his will, the friends who helped him, the gallant soldier who gave him his commission, and his long, painful correspondence with the mother of the lady he would have made his wife. Nor did the defendant profess to have forgotten any circumstances connected with the lives of Roger Tichborne and his relatives. Roger’s mother signs her Australian letter H. F. Tichborne. He does not say that he has forgotten her Christian names, which Roger knew well, but for Henriette Félicité he substitutes the homely English names, Hannah Frances. Roger took leave of his dying grandfather, Mr. Seymour, at Bath. The Claimant does not pretend to have forgotten the event, but shifts the scene to Knoyle. It was therefore of the very essence of the Claimant’s case that he should display a tenacious and accurate memory. It was by the pretended exercise of it that he gained all his adherents. To admit the loss of it would have been fatal to his case.

  Roger Tichborne’s native language was French. He continued to speak it in France up to the age of 17, and frequently in England up to the age of 25. He acquired English later, and spoke it to the last with a French accent. The Claimant could not speak or read French; but he spoke Spanish as a man who had spent eighteen months in South America might be expected to do. Assuming, again, the identity of the Claimant with Roger Tichborne, had anything occurred to utterly destroy his knowledge of French? There is but one answer. It had not. The Claimant spoke Spanish years after he had acquired it. What reason, then, could there be for his having altogether forgotten French if he had ever known it? The Claimant was singularly tenacious of the habits he had
formed. We may therefore assume that he would have retained some trace of ths strong French accent with which Roger Tichborne always spoke English,

  What degree and duration of light are needed for identification?—That a very short duration of a brilliant light suffices for this purpose is shown by the case of a lady, on her way from India who awoke on a dark night, and heard some one stirring in her cabin. A sudden flash of lightning enabled her to see distinctly a man rummaging one of her trunks, and so to discern his features as to identify him next morning. Some of the stolen things were found upon him, and he acknowledged the theft.*

  In the following case, the question arose whether the light of a pistol-flash would suffice to discover the face of the person firing:—

  The Sieur Labbe, on a dark night in May, 1808, was riding with the widow Beaujean, attended by a servant on foot. The servant was wounded in the hand by a gun fired through a hedge bordered by a ditch; and both he and his master swore that they recognised the assassin by the light of the discharge. An accused party, who was arrested, tried, and condemned to death, appealed to the Court of Cassation; and Gineau, Member of the Institute, and Professor of Experimental Physics in the Imperial College of France, was consulted as to the possibility of identification in the manner described. Accordingly, Gineau, his son, Professors Dupuis and Caussin, and others, stationed at different distances, to witness the effect, caused several primings to be fired in a dark room. The light, strong but fuliginous, was so transient that “it was scarcely possible to see distinctly the form of a head, and that of the face could not be recognised.” The experiments were then repeated in the courtyard of the college, the gun being loaded with powder, but with the same results. The sentence was reversed.†