642 



NA TURE 



[October 30, 1890 



I doubt whether we would be much the gainers by a 

 comparison. In making this statement it must be dis- 

 tinctly understood that I am only comparing their lives 

 with their own ideals, and not judging them by the ethical 

 standards of other races. It is true they were treacherous, 

 often murdered strangers, and were head-hunters ; that 

 their ideas of sexual morality differed from ours, but 

 these " crimes " were not prohibited by public conscience, 

 and there was therefore no wrong in their committing 

 them. 



Our higher civilization has swept over these poor 

 people like a flood, and denuded them of more than 

 their barbarous customs ; the old morality has largely 

 gone too.^ 



FRENCH POLICE PHOTOGRAPHY. 



MALPHONSE BERTILLON, who has so com- 

 • pletely demonstrated the futility of the photograph 

 as a means of judicial identification on any extended 

 scale (see my description of M. Bertillon's system of 

 police anthropometry in the Fortnightly Review for 

 March last), when a mere mass of photographs is ac- 

 cumulated with no scientific scheme to aid them, has 

 himself, nevertheless, done more than anyone else to 

 develop and demonstrate the proper subordinate use of 

 the photograph as an agent of the law. M. Bertillon's 

 studies on the subject are not only most valuable to the 

 members of the public administration, but are intensely 

 interesting and instructive to the general reader, and the 

 general scientific student especially, as will be readily 

 acknowledged on a perusal of the young French official's 

 latest publication.^ He has not only offered me the privi- 

 lege of making such extracts as I please from this work, but 

 has kindly furnished me with some of the diagrams in 

 the text. This new volume has already attracted con- 

 siderable attention in France, and will doubtless be re- 

 ceived with as much interest in England as have M. 

 Bertillon's previous studies in the domam of anthropology, 

 so that an account of the work in the columns of NATURE 

 seems most opportune. 



M. Bertillon begins by describing the sharp distinction 

 between ordinary photography and judicial photography. 

 Artistic and commercial photographs are subordinate to 

 considerations of taste and fashion — -not by any means 

 for the purpose of recognizing the subjects of the photo- 

 graphs when met with in after time. The judicial photo- 

 graph, on the other hand, takes no heed of artistic pose, 

 but must conform to rules which enable the skilled eye 

 to recognize the subject under the most unfavourable cir- 

 cumstances. It relates to various classes of subjects, 

 some known and to be recognized hereafter, such as 

 dangerous criminals ; and some unknown and to be, if 

 possible, identified by distant witnesses at the present 

 time, such as suspected persons under arrest, corpses at 

 the Morgue, the wandering insane, lost children, subjects 

 of paralytic shocks, and innumerable human mysteries 

 constantly falling into the hands of the police. The 

 police are thus obliged to be constantly circulating photo- 

 graphs of their own manufacture, and it is of the utmost 

 importance that such photographs should be taken upon 

 the most scientific lines for accomplishing the object in 

 view. Above all, in collecting vast numbers of judicial pho- 

 tographs for future reference — the photographic archives, 

 " cantly " known in English as the " Rogues' Gallery " 

 (though by no means confined to rogues in the eyes of 

 the law) — it is important that the portraits should be taken 



' Further information as to customs and legends of the Torres Straits 

 Islanders will be found in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 

 vol. xix. i8go, and in Follf-lore, vol. i. 1890. 



- " La Photographie Judiciaire, avec un appendice sur la classification et 

 I'identification anthropometriques." Par Alphonse Bertillon, Chef du Service 

 d' Identification de la Prefecture de Police. (Paris : Gauthier-Villars et fils, 

 1890.) 



with uniformity, the questions of full face or profile, full 

 length or bust, &c., being decided beforehand, a fixed 

 scale being adopted. Otherwise two photographs will be 

 often of little use for purposes of comparison. 



There is but one object to be attained, and that is 

 easily analyzed — to produce the most perfect likeness, or 

 rather to produce the likeness easiest to recognize, the 

 one most easily identified with the original. The problem 

 in this shape depends on a new factor : Under what cir- 

 cumstances and aspects did those who will be called upon 

 to give an opinion on our photograph know our subject ? 

 and leads to this further question : What is the object 

 sought by the judicial inquiry ? 



If it is a question of taking a sort of print of the in- 

 dividual which, together with his description and judicial 

 record, will enable him to be identified after the lapse of 

 many years, then above all things it is necessary to have 

 recourse to the most lasting features of the human body, 

 and to consult the natural sciences, more especially an- 

 thropology. If, on the other hand, it is a question of 

 identification with the past — that is, that our photograph is 

 destined to be compared with others that have been pre- 

 served in jails or police offices — the solution is very simple, 

 and consists, above all other considerations, in repro- 

 ducing the pose, the light, the size, and scale of reduction 

 used in the archives to which our portrait is to be sent. 



In regard to the important subject of light M. Ber- 

 tillon speaks as follows: — "Absolute similarity is un- 

 fortunately unattainable. The aspect of the studio, the 

 hour of sitting, the st^ite, more or less cloudy, of the sky, 

 will always betray themselves by the difference in the 

 direction, and the greater or less intensity, of the shadows. 

 We ought first of all to reject, as too complicated, all 

 artistic or fantastic lights. For the full face the light 

 should come principally from the left, a little in front. 

 The pose chair and the apparatus being fixed to the 

 floor at an unchangeable distance, we have for the profile 

 but the direct front or back light to choose from. The 

 fight from behind gives more accentuation to the full face, 

 and a more artistic tone. But the interior folds of the 

 ear-are necessarily in the shade, and the silhouette does 

 not stand out so clearly as with a front light. The 

 necessity of our profiles being taken with a front light, 

 together with the early hour at which they are taken 

 (so as not to interfere with the magistrates, whose work 

 commences at 12), forces us to take the right profile 

 to the exclusion of the left. In fact, the photograph 

 studios generally facing north, and the sun being south- 

 east between 10 and 11 o'clock, the left profile can only 

 be lighted by a counter light to the camera. In a judicial 

 studio, therefore, thus lighted from the north, the appa- 

 ratus would be placed on the east side and the pose 

 chair on the west, the work being done in the morning. 

 By a curious coincidence, and no doubt from analogous 

 causes, the greater number of ethnographic photographs 

 of profile, especially those which compose the superb 

 collection of Prince Roland Bonaparte, are taken from the 

 right side." 



The author next discusses the scale to be employed, 

 advocating the necessity of including the shoulders, 

 to show on occasion the crook-backed carpenter, or 

 stiff Briton or Prussian (presumably contrasted with the 

 supple Frenchman), preferring a reduction of i in 7 

 and a distance of 2*56 metres, various technical details 

 being given for the benefit of the artist. 



In his second chapter, M. Bertillon takes up the ques- 

 tion of the use of the judicial photograph after it is 

 obtained — firstly, as regards identification of two photo- 

 graphs ; secondly, identification of a photograph with a 

 person in custody ; thirdly, with a person at liberty ; 

 lastly (the operation most famihar to the public), identi- 

 fication with a recollection in some one's mind. Of 

 course, it is for this latter object that police portraits are 

 strewn broadcast for the eve of the community at large. 



NO. 1C96, vo:. 42] 



