In 1883 there were conducted within my knowledge a series of
experiments illustrative of the unreliability of photographic
identifications, and other similar experiments have often been made.
These consisted in calling upon ten students who had witnessed two
skillful sign writers executing some work upon a street window to
later identify them from photographs. An open album was first handed
to the student who was told to choose which one of two pictures before
him was the party in question, they all made a prompt decision as to
one or the other being the person they had seen, the fact being that
neither of the pictures were of these men. To another group of ten
that had also seen the painters under like circumstances was given
a frame containing forty photographs, they being instructed that the
picture of one of the men they had seen was among the number. Only one
chose the right picture, and none looked for or found more than one,
although without their knowledge pictures of both were plainly before
them in the group. The result of the entire number of experiments was
that over 95 per cent. failed in their efforts at identification. In
my own case by means of pictures, a man in Milwaukee is or was ready
to make oath that I was in that city, accompanied by the two children,
at a time when the Philadelphia authorities know we were elsewhere. A
woman in Chicago is equally positive that I was several days at her
boarding house with Miss Williams and the two children, at a time when
the authorities know I was in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the same manner
two Detroit parties are ready to swear that Miss Williams was in that
city, accompanied by a man answering my description of Hatch, at a time
when I know he was with me in Indianapolis. In all these instances,
and in the Toronto identifications, I believe that the parties have
been honest in the statements made, but it must be remembered that they
have been led to understand that no other decision was possible. A good
example of the methods employed was furnished some months ago when at
police headquarters here. I was taken before some twenty or thirty
people by a detective who, when near enough for them to hear, said,
“Mr. Holmes, these people are witnesses in the case for which you are
to be tried here, and I wish to see if they can identify you.”