Some pieces of broken glass had been taken to Scotland Yard, four days
previous to the Ward, Lock & Co. burglary. These fragments of glass
had been picked up at the London City Mission, where a burglar had
broken through a window and carried off a clock and other articles. No
one could be connected with the crime after a most thorough detective
hunt.
The one remaining source was a bit of glass on which finger prints
had been noticed. These were photographed and compared with the
finger prints of all the recent records. Surprisingly enough, they
corresponded exactly with those of the young clerk who had been found
stealing books from the publishers' warehouse. Instead of being a
clerk, he was a very adept young burglar. On this new evidence the
prisoner was sentenced to twelve months at hard labor.
About a month before this a similar case occurred in London. A man was
arrested on Tower Hill carrying a pair of boots wrapped up in a brown
paper. He said he had been employed to carry the parcel to Fenchurch
Street Station. He was held on suspicion. Later in the day it was
discovered that the boots had been stolen from a neighboring store,
and that on the transom, which had been broken, there was a perfect
imprint of a man's finger.
Inspector Collins, superintendent of the finger print department at
New Scotland Yard, examined the print and found it corresponded to the
mark of the suspected man's left forefinger made on the brown paper
parcel in which the boots were wrapped. The evidence was conclusive,
the man pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to nine months at hard labor.
About the same time another interesting case occurred in
Staffordshire, England. There had been a wholesale burglary of a large
jeweler's shop. The perpetrator had left distinct finger marks on a
plate glass shelf in a window. These marks were photographed and sent
to New Scotland Yard. They were identified as belonging to William
Davis, a notorious burglar who had been confined at Wakefield prison
in 1901.
The man was hunted up. He was found living near the place of the
recent robbery under the name of John McNally. He at first denied the
recent offense, but afterward made a full confession. But for these
tell-tale finger marks, he might have continued to ply his trade
unsuspected under his new name, in a district where the local police
did not know him.
In one of the large banks where the finger print system was
introduced, they make it a rule that when a depositor cannot read or
write, he shall, in addition to making his mark in the old way on
checks or documents, place the finger print of the thumb or index
finger on them.