1895.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 153 



of detective work resulted in the conviction of Asa G. Gurney, 

 agent of the American Express Company at New Orleans. The 

 facts in the case are as follows : 



On the morning of October 15, $22,500 was found to be mis- 

 sing from a safe containing $.50,000, sent from the bank of 

 Commerce, New York, to the Whitney National Bank, New 

 Orleans. The loss was discovered in the office of the express 

 compan'^ at the latter place. There was not the slightest clue 

 to the thief and although clever detectives worked diligently on 

 the case for sometime, they failed to clear up the mystery. At 

 length David N. Carvalho, a well-known New York expert in 

 handwriting, was called in. He began to work upon the 

 express envelope containing the key of the safe which it 

 accompanied and under the microscope discovered the faint 

 impression of a man's right thumb in the w:ix of a broken 

 seal. It has been shown in numberless instances that the 

 thumb or finger impressions of no two person are alike, and 

 further, that the impressions remain the same, from the 

 cradle to the grave. 



Mr. Carvalho decided to make this discovery the base of 

 his operations. He asked the officials of the company for a 

 wax impress of the right thumb of every man through whose 

 hands the envelope had passed. He did not ask for the names, 

 but carefully refrained from learning them. The company 

 retained the names. Several red wax impressions were given 

 into his hands. They were the thumb marks of seven men 

 who had had possession of the envelope between New York 

 and New Orleans. Mr. Carvalho now set out on the laborious 

 task of tracing some resemblance between the seven thumb 

 marks and the impression on the seal. This was a job of no 

 mean proportions as all thumb marks and the impression on 

 the seal had to be photographed to many times their original 

 size. 



But at length after many days' work he discovered that one 

 of the thumb marks was the same in every respect as the tell- 

 tale impression on the seal. The thumb belonged to the com- 

 pany's agent at New Orleans, Asa G. Gurney. Other facts 

 were shrewdly brought out by Mr. Carvalho, which proved 

 his guilt beyond the possibility of a doubt. 



