IDENTIFICATION OF CRIMINALS
In all up-to-date police and detective bureaus the Bertillon System
is now being used whenever practicable for the identification of
criminals. I consider it important that detectives be thoroughly
familiar with the system, as it is a wonderfully accurate system of
identification and quite easy for anyone to become familiar with, as I
will show.
The Bertillon System of identification was unknown previous to the
year 1880, in which year it was adopted in France as a standard by
the police department of Paris, where it was introduced by Alphonse
Bertillon, its founder. Since then it has been adopted by police
departments of practically all large cities in the United States,
Canada and Europe. For the identification of criminals the Bertillon
System depends upon accurate measurements of various parts of the human
body, having to do especially with the bones, which in adults never
change. The parts measured are head, left ear, left foot, left middle
finger, extended left forearm, outstretched arms, the trunk and height.
In the Bertillon System the metric measurement is used exclusively.
In such measurement we have the meter, which equals 39.37 inches; the
centimeter, which is the one-hundredth part of a meter and which equals
0.3937 of an inch; and the millimeter, which is the one-thousandth part
of a meter and which equals 0.03937 of an inch.
In order to take the measurements of a criminal in accordance with the
Bertillon System it is of course necessary to have and use a metric
measure; one can be purchased almost anywhere in the United States
for fifty cents. So as to make the matter of measurement more clear,
I might state that under our own system of measurement we measure by
yards, feet and inches, half inches, quarter inches, etc. Under the
metric system we measure by meters, centimeters and millimeters. It
will readily be seen that with the metric system it is possible to
measure accurately the thousandth part of an inch.
We will take for instance a criminal whose height is five feet and one
inch. In Bertillon or metric measurement his height would be one meter
and fifty-five centimeters; written thus: 1 M. 55. 0. If a criminal's
height be, for instance, five feet seven and a half inches, it would
be, according to Bertillon or metric measurement, one meter, 71
centimeters, and five millimeters, written thus: 1 M. 71. 5. A criminal
whose height is five feet and 7/8 inches would be shown in Bertillon in
the following manner, with other measurements added:
1.67.6 1.74.0 88.1 19.0 16.0 14.5 6.0 26.1 11.8 8.9 45.4
HGT OA TR HL HW CW RE LF LMF LLF FA
These abbreviations signify, in the order shown, that this criminal's
height is one meter, sixty-seven centimeters and six millimeters;
outer arms one meter, seventy-four centimeters; trunk eighty-eight
centimeters and one millimeter; head length nineteen centimeters;
head width, sixteen centimeters; cheek width fourteen centimeters and
five millimeters; right ear six centimeters; left foot twenty-six
centimeters and one millimeter; left middle finger eleven centimeters
and eight millimeters; left little finger eight centimeters and nine
millimeters; forearm forty-five centimeters and four millimeters. The
foregoing abbreviations have been adopted for convenience upon the
backs of criminal photographs and where space usually is limited.