518 The Journal 
prints of a gorilla, shown in Fig. 16, 
were not made by a human being. 
The problem may arise in connection 
with more serious crime. Every one 
knows Edgar Allen Poe’s detective 
story, “‘The Murders in the Rue 
Morgue,’ which turned upon the iden- 
tification of a great ape as the perpe- 
trator of the mysterious crimes. A 
somewhat parallel case occured in 
France only last year. The newspaper 
account says: 
“The victim was a young woman, 
Mlle. Marie Christophle, aged 24, 
belonging to an old and wealthy family 
living at No. 43 Cours Sablon at 
Clermont-Ferrand, an important French 
provincial city. The family consisted 
of this girl, her mother, and a brother, 
Jean Christophle, one year younger 
than herself. They enjoyed a large 
income and lived in a fine old house. 
The son was called as a soldier on the 
outbreak of the war, but obtained a 
comfortable position on the staff, which 
enabled him to live at home in Clermont- 
Ferrand. 
“Mile. Christophle occupied a_ bed- 
room on the fourth floor of the house. 
At half-past 2 in the morning agonized 
shrieks in different tones and cries of 
‘Fire!’ coming from this house were 
heard by the neighbors. The firemen 
broke into the house and hurried to 
Mlle. Christophle’s room, where the 
fire was burning. 
“They found that it was already 
nearly extinguished, and soon put an 
end to it. Jean Christophle and his 
mother had apparently been busily 
engaged in trying to put out the blaze. 
The big old-fashioned wood four-poster 
bedstead, with canopy, had been partly 
burnt up. 
“In the midst of the ruins, by the 
side of the bed, lay the dead body of 
Marie Christophle. The firemen and 
others at first assumed that she had 
been suffocated by the fire. 
of Heredity 
“In due course a judicial inquiry 
into her death was begun, and at once 
the interesting fact was established 
that her death was not due directly 
to the fire or to the suffocation caused 
by it. She had received severe blows 
on the head from sone blunt instrument 
probably capable of causing death. 
“She had also received injuries in 
many parts of the body which, it is 
thought, might have been caused by 
the hands of a powerful man.”’ 
Her mother and brother thought these 
injuries were due to the top of the bed 
falling on her, and to her falling on a 
table and chair; and that death resulted 
from an attack of heart trouble, to 
which she was subject. 
“T do not believe she was attacked by 
any one,’ said her brother. ‘The 
first information I had of trouble 
was when I heard her shrieks and then 
the noise of her body falling to the 
floor. Then I rushed to her room. No 
man who had attacked her could have 
escaped without passing my room and 
being seen by me.”’ 
After some weeks, during which the 
police made no progress, the police 
arrested Mme. Christophle and her son, 
on suspicion of causing the girl’s death. 
There was no direct evidence against 
them. 
“Then it became known that the 
police of Clermont-Ferrand were work- 
ing on the theory that an ape had 
committed the mysterious crime. This 
fact first leaked out when it was learned 
that the police had been examining all 
the monkeys in the possession of persons 
in Clermont-Ferrand. 
“This led enterprising reporters to 
the discovery that the police had kept 
a remarkable collection of finger-prints 
found in and about the room where the 
tragedy occurred and upon the body of 
the dead girl. 
“Some of the injuries on the body of 
the girl were, it was reported, apparently 
classified as almond shaped whorls, but unlike the impressions made by the human hand no 
deltas are shown, which would prevent a further classification of the impressions by ridge tracing. 
It seems quite remarkable that in the higher development of the primate family the ridges 
in the feet should have obtained a development so similar to the ridges in the fingers of a human 
being, that at a glance you would take the impression to have been made by a hand of a person 
that had performed much manual labor, while the Lemur shows only a blur without the significant 
lines.”’ 
