Abstract
THE July magazines contain a few papers of scientific interest. In the New Review Mr. E. R. Spearman writes on “Criminals and their Detection.” This article is a vigorous protest against the crude methods of identification employed at Scotland Yard. In spite of the thousands of blunders that have been made, our police authorities are stolidly indifferent to their imperfections, and look upon the Bertillon system as a “scientific fad.” But this is the way in which the official mind usually views matters of scientific importance. To show the absurdity of the position taken up, Mr. Spearman gives a full description of the Bertillon process o measurement, with the results obtained since the method was adopted in France, and compares it with the haphazard system of identification used in our prisons. But for the fact that officialism never acknowledges itself to be in the wrong, bertillonage would have been established in England long ago.
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Science in the Magazines. Nature 48, 249–250 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/048249b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/048249b0