The accompanying illustrations, which are reproduced here by the
permission of Mr. Thorne Baker and the _Daily Mirror_, show a portrait of
King Edward VII and an outline war map which were thus transmitted by
"wireless" telegraphy.
Mr. Thorne Baker states that the use of his instrument renders "tapping"
impossible, since by merely making a slight alteration in the speed of
running the machines, in accordance with a signal arranged beforehand, the
pictures would be so distorted as to be unrecognisable.
As an early instance of the use made by the police of a portrait in
identifying a suspected individual the case of Arden, who was executed for
murder at the beginning of last century, may be mentioned.
Arden had given a drawing of himself to a youth, and this was handed to
the police who were thus able to identify the accused in London a month
later.
The general use of photography in the press has frequently come to the aid
of the police, and instances of photographs of a wanted individual being
employed for this purpose will occur to everyone. At any police station
may now be seen reproductions of photographs of missing individuals, and
these being circulated all over the world, reduce to a small compass the
limits within which a suspect may go without detection.
Reference may be made to two recent cases by way of illustration. A nurse
had kidnapped a child and all traces of her whereabouts were lost for some
days. Her portrait was published in all the leading papers, and being seen
by the proprietor of an hotel in the Midlands was recognised as that of
one of his guests.
Acting on this information a police inspector suddenly accosted the
suspected woman and addressed her in her real name, and she, taken off her
guard, answered his remarks naturally, and was at once arrested.
In January of 1908, Miss Violet Charlesworth succeeded in filling pages of
every English paper by suddenly vanishing from her creditors, under
circumstances intended to suggest that she had been killed. She arranged a
motor-car "accident" upon the cliffs at Penmaenbach, and ostensibly was
flung through the glass screen of the car into the sea.
As no trace of the body could be found it was soon suspected that there
had been no accident, and that before long the victim would come to life
again. Her portraits were published in hundreds of papers, and were posted
at police stations all over the United Kingdom, and amateur detectives by
the score endeavoured to discover her whereabouts.
She was recognised from the portraits in half a dozen parts of the country
at the same time, but it was not until a fortnight later that she was
positively identified at Oban.
The anti-climax of the farce was reached, when, a few days later, she paid
a visit to the London office of her solicitor, and was attended from the
station by a string of motor-cars each containing the special
representative of a London paper.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT SENT BY WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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