Science and the Criminal

To label the adulterator of food as a criminal would, in the majority of cases, be too harsh a sentence, but in the worst forms of adulteration--those in which food that is posi...

The discovery of photography was welcomed by the police authorities of civilised countries as affording a certain means of registering criminals for subsequent identification. B...

In the constant state of warfare between the law-maker and the law-breaker, which began when mankind first organised itself into communities and has existed ever since, every ne...

Merely to mention the word "poisoner" calls up a long succession of notorious crimes of the past, not to speak of the still more frequent cases where poisoning was suspected, th...

The evidence given at the trial of William Hale, in 1728, at the Old Bailey has many points of interest. The accused was charged with forging a promissory note for £6,400.

In its structure blood may be described as a colourless fluid, the _plasma_ having in suspension small solid substances--the red and white corpuscles. The plasma may be separate...

Use of Poisons--Arsenic and Antimony--Chapman Case--Strychnine in Palmer Trial--Physiological Tests--Case of Freeman--Error from Quantitative Deductions--Poisonous Food Given to...

In the days of the stage-coach a fugitive had a better chance of escaping than in the present age of steam power on land and sea. For then, slow as were the ways of escape, the...

The first occasion upon which scientific evidence as to the difference of blue-black inks upon a document was given in a court of law in this country was at the trial of Richard...

For instance, a letter may have been so carefully erased as to defy detection by ordinary examination, but a microscopical examination will show the slightly roughened surface o...

The untrustworthiness of the eye-witness as to detail was recently demonstrated by Professor McKeever at the Kansas State College in the following manner.[2] He asked twenty-fiv...

In order to make clear the principles upon which are based the methods of distinguishing between different kinds of ink in handwriting it is necessary to give some account of th...

The identification of an individual solely by means of his handwriting is always liable to lead to a miscarriage of justice, for even in the cases of the closest resemblance bet...

At one time the only evidence that was allowed to be given as to handwriting was that of the writer himself, or of someone who had seen the writing done, or was well acquainted...

James Maybrick, who was a cotton merchant, fifty years of age, had married the accused in America in 1881, she being then eighteen years old. Four years later they had made thei...

The so-called _sympathetic inks_, by which is understood inks that give a writing that is invisible, or nearly so, until it has been acted upon by the air or treated with a spec...

Use of Poisons--Arsenic and Antimony--Chapman Case-- Strychnine in Palmer Trial--Physiological Tests--Case of Freeman--Error from Quantitative Deductions--Poisonous Food Given t...