Scotland Yard’s Big Six Vindicated While Under Fire of Critics
BY C\ PATRICK THOMPSON'.
SCOTLAND YARD. London's fa
mous anti-crime organization, is
feeling pleased with itself again.
For months it had been under
a cloud. A polid? constable had
been murdered while attempting to
make an arrest. His assailants had
sent bullets crashing through the pu
pils of his eyes—and then had sped to
safety in a stolen automobile All Eng
land was stirred—and called for the
swift punishment of the murderers.
Scotland Yard set to work on the
■ ease, but nothing happened. Month
after month went by without an arrest
being made: without even a clue being ]
found, so far as the English public j
Many were the criticisms that were j
leveled at the slow, laborious methods j
of crime detection, though for years j
these methods had held England's an- j
nual crop of murders to a \erv small ;
minimum and had reduced the number
of unsolved murders virtually to the j
vanishing point
Many were the entreaties for the 1
Yard to abandon its time-worn method
of keeping everlastingly on a certain j
track. •‘lntroduce modern methods:" j
“Get your man!”
And then, just when it looked as if
Scotland Yard had been licked, that
it had been sticking stubbornly to a
wrong scent—two arrests were made J
and two convictions were obtained
Scotland Yard had vindicated itself
and its methods.
It is a thrilling story—the store of
this vindication, but before we launch
into that, let’s glance at the men who !
have brought it about—-"the Big Six"
of Scotland Yard.
Come with me behind the scenes of
the great red-turreted building on
Thames-side, by the Houses of Parlia
ment. and meet these six superdetec
tives. the men who are chiefly respon
sible for the fact that out of a year s j
total of 114 murders (this in a popula- |
tion of 38.000.000* only two remain un- i
solved.
** * *
Ji'OREMOST among Them stands the
vulture - headed Chief Constable
Wensley, chief of the criminal investi
gation department. Normally he is re- j
sponsible for the detection and suppres
sion of crime among the 7.500.000 per
sons in the metropolis. Actually, he
is the chief detective of England, al- j
ways liable to be called in by the police
chiefs outside his area for the solution
of some major crime.
He directs operations on every major
crime and presides at the daily confer
ence of the big six. His men make j
about 150.000 arrests a year. 16.000 of !
these being for indictable offenses
ranging from arson, rape, counterfeit
ing and wounding to robbery with vio
lence and murder.
He is the master elucidator, probably !
the most efficient and experienced de
tective functioning today, and one of
the world's remarkable men. His face,
with its great beak of a nose, trap
mouth and basilisk eyes, is stony in its
calm.
He used to be a “footslogger," an
ordinary patrolman: now he rides with
his powerful shoulders and big vulture
head slouched against the cushions of
a huge limousine.
In the 40 years intervening between ,
one state and the other he has acquired
a marvelous knowledge of the under
world and its ways, and has gone about
collecting murderers, counterfeiters, ;
forgers, robbers, gang chiefs and other
criminal fry as you or I might collect
stamps—tenaciously, expertly, interest
edly. yet detachedly.
He thinks crime is a disease. But J
when he is after a man there is no i
eoftness about him. He is tenacious
as a bulldog, cunning as a ferret, sharp
as a hawk, relentless and merciless.
He has his human side. He is with
out vindictiveness He is on hand- i
shaking terms with hundreds of crim
inals. He has helped the destitute
family of many a crook.
His life has never been attempted.
There was a rime when the chiefs of j
the East Side gangs he was engaged in ;
breaking up swore that his life was not
worth a moment’s purchase. But he ;
went about the crime quarter unarmed ,
and unescorted—and lives.
He made his name in the service by 1
gang smashing, and his name with 1
Moses Gets Houston Warning
* This Smith Party Is in the Big League,
Brother, When It Comes to Sitting the
Enemy Down With a Single Para
graph,” Says Rogers—Always
Excitement at a Demo
cratic Anything.
BY WILL ROGERS.
WELL, all I know is just what
I read In the papers, and
what I see as I prow! over ;
the old Commonwealth.
Here we are down here in
Houston, all getting set for another
Dog Fight. I think we are going to
have a lot of fun down here. There is j
always excitement at a Democratic;
anything- Os course it dont look like ;
there 1* any way to keep from nominat
ing Al, hut that dont maxe any dif
ference. there i* always something
that will stir up an argument even ,
If they all agree
And talking about Smith reminds me
of an incident that happened at the i
Kan*** City show Senator Moses was
the Chairman or Ringmaster of the
outfit, and. of course no one at any of j
those things can take office without j
making the customary speech. Well
here i* part of what he said, We enter j
this coming battle militant. We intend
to carry the fight to the enemy, and
we challenge them to bring forth their ,
strongest champion, whether he emerge
from another 103-round battle of ihe
Madison Square Beer Garden or from
a convention held spellbound by the
Tammany Tiger We are ready for,
him bring him on and we will bury i
him We will welcome him with ho*- {
nitabie hands to a bloody grave and -
we care not whether his name be!
Brown. Jones, or Smith ”
Now them is stnfiig words Moses, j
even f or a Prophet to utter Now it*
all right to use then; on the ordinary j
run of Politicians. It sounds great, J
and the gallery eat It up. But when j
you are messing with Ai Smith, why j
you are not dealing with the ordinary j
politician you are going up against
a man that can take the English;
language and throw it back to you ;
wrapped up as ridicule, and Moses he
will have you taking to the Moun* lie ;
will make you wish you had smitten |
those words on a rock, and not uttered
them in national convention This
Baby Smith i* a past master of re - j
nartee You been dealing with some of j
those slow thinking Senators around
there, and you are liable to get a little
f/wkx tor you hand out some mean •
ridicule yourself. But brother, tills
Bmlth party is in the Big League when
it comes to sitting the enemy down
with a single paragraph So Jam just j
ti nii you oft Lay oft this Guy, you
ir»v defeat him at the polls this,
Autumn but the more dignified you
ha££ your end of » the bettor If
t ever come* to s battle of words he
%ih have all ti* Dellfatgg, so you 1
Criminal Investigators Are Led by Man Wbo Is Credited With Being World’s Most Efficient and Experienced Detective.
Relentless Methods Are Combined With Complete Freedom From Vindictiveness.
* ——.———■—.— mm——mm —■—WW————■——w—————— mmmmm ——.
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S; -i - L*- 1 * ,* y . v $
“ONE OF THE ESSEX POLICEMEN WAS FOUND DEAD IN A LONELY LANE.” .
the public by solving two extraordinary i
murder mysteries.
One was a case in which he had to j
find the murderer of a headless woman
left lying in a West End square. His !
only' clue was a laundry' mark on a '
sheet shrouding the corpse. He hunted i
his man along lines which have since
become the standard method at the i
Yard in the approach to all murder j
mysteries.
First he asked himself what sort of
person would be likely to commit such
a crime; he estimated the mental and
psychological aspects of the case; and
then he examined the known bad char
acters who might have done the thing.
He asked three main questions: Who
was the last person seen with the vic
tim? Who were the victim's friends?
Where was the instrument used in the
crime purchased?
He got his man. a Belgian butcher
named Voisin. Voisin was hanged.
The other case is known in crime his
tory as “the trunk murder.” The dis
membered corpse of a woman was found
in a trunk deposited in the cloakroom
at a London railway station. The only
clue was a dishcloth marked “St.'' But
that clue led Wensley to the office of
a man named Robinson, and a blood
stained match in that office completed
the chain of evidence. Robinson was
executed.
a* * a
J-JAWKINS. bald, stout, spectacled, is j
the robbery and blackmail expert. I
He is the repository of innumerable se- ;
crets of the haut monde. The late Lord t
Rothschild. England's Pierpont Morgan. *
; better keep the election on votes and
not on Slogans There 1* men that j
can speak better English than Smith,
but there is not any that can make it
sound any better.
By the way, however, Moses made a
mighty good officer. He gave us an ex
ample of the Republican methods. The
\ minority was drowned out by the j
gravel.
The best speeches made there were by
young Bob Lafolette and Senator Borah.
The others could have sent ’em In by
mail. But say, this young Lafolette
has a great deal of the old man in him.
He has that kind <>f little sympathetic f
touch In his voice, like a sincere appeal,
and looks like a real promising young
fellow He looks like he has a great
; career ahead of him. It's too bad he is
! so many ahead of his time, but he is.
It will take about three generations of ;
Lafolette* before the people catch up to j
what they are working on Borah was
great. He was on the opposite side from
what he usaully is, that is, he was try
ing to pacify them, and not stir 'em up.
He was against the Mary MrHaughen
bill, and a lot of the Lawyers for the j
farmers were for it. But the conven- j
lion voted it down, so that kills that, j
Coolidge always said it wouldn't work. !
I don't know whether it would or not,
but I know it never will,
i It seems good to come to a Conven
tion where some of the Public men are
I known. Outside Bill Borah with the
Republicans nobody knows any of them.
; But down here when a man gets up to
, speak, why we al! know who it is. They
j to have more color and character. j
And tire old town of Houston is sure i
i set to give ern a tlm<- This Convention 1
means a lot to the State of Texas. !
| Thousands are seeing it this coming j
* week that never had any idea of what
\it was like I have often said, and I
Hili say and believe it, that North Caro
lina has made more progress in the
, last few' years than any other State in
; the Union, and Texas 1* next. Not a
1 bad record when you figure that there
!is 48 (count 'em) Texas is a-humming
She has some great towns. Don’t get
out of the State, you Dellgates, till you
j have seen some of the other town* they
j have Course it is a little warm here
! now, and may be all week, but we are
‘ ah overweight anyway, and havent got
! the Will power to reduce by less eating,
so we will kinder perspire it off here.
They have a great Convention hall
that they pul up aft-r they landed the
| Convention. They are hustler* down)
; here.
They have to go some to do a better \
job of it than Kansas City did They i
did mighty proud by their Republicans, I
j and were blessed with great weather, I
' The New York Deiigation IR coming in
THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON, P. C.. .TUNE 24. I32S—HART T.
| once called him in to settle a black
! mailer.
Hawkins arranged a neat trap. Ten j
! thousand dollars was to be placed in a ;
! hotel washroom. Hawkins fixed up an
’ electric contraption to ring a bell in
an adjoining room when the notes were
: picked up. The bell rang. Hawkins
i rushed in and seized a man who was
i desperately trying to wash black stains
; off his hands.
Hawkins had covered the notes with
powder scraped from indelible pencils,
so that the blackmailer should be
marked beyond all doubt.
Bill Brown, the black-haired giant, is
the burglar specialist. Then there is
Nicholls. With his little, waxed mus
tache and dapper air he looks like a
floorwalker. But there is nothing of
the floorwalker in his mental make-up. ]
j He is an adept at disguise, a master in j
I the gentle art of shadowing, talks
French and German, is an expert on
| the international “dope" traffic and
stopped the use of drugs among the
troops during the war He prepares
cases for the director of public prose
cutions.
John Ashley, another of the formid
able bunch, looks like a Methodist par
son and does the detail thinking for j
Wensley. He talks to criminals in such :
a fatherly way that he usually gets the I
| truth out of them. He has trained his ;
! memory to such a degree that when he •
'< sits in at the conferences of criminal 1
j and legal experts when major crimes
j are under discussion the alternative to
! a search of the records is to “ask Ash
| ley-” !
He is the man who docketed at the ;
! Yard over 1.000,000 records of British I
"
THE NEW YORK DELEGATION IS COMING BY BOAT.
by boat and they have built a special j
canal that brings ’em up from the i
ocean.
They are talking about putting a wet 1
INDIAN THIEF TRACKER.
IN India the great enemy of thieves
Is the khnjl, whose 'nam' 1 signings
"searcher" or "tracker" and whose busi
ness Is to truck criminals by their foot
prints These trackers are trained to
their calling from youth and become
exceedingly expert. They are an espe
cial terror to the cattle stealers, who, In
the parts of the Punjab ad joining the
Indus and other large rivers, where
much grazing Is carried on, are very
plentiful. These match their cunning
against that of the tracker, but they
have to be very clever to throw' him off
the scent.
One of their tricks Is to catch a buf
falo, drive It Into the river, and, cling,
ing to Its tail, guide it In the way they
desire to go By this means they are
| quickly carried down the current and
! leave no telltale footprints. But the
| ruse Is not always successful, for the
teason that the tracker thinks nothing
of distance and Is likely to come upon
(the tracks farther on. where the tiuef
I was forced to leave the stream.
A good tracker, it is asserted, will fol
i low a thief, yard by yard, for a hundred
! miles and come up with him In the end.
I In one instance a burglar was once
tracked until the searcher reached the •
and international crooks. Possibly this
I accounts for his prematurely gray hair
Once he was explaining to a well
i known man how almost everybody car- j
ried an identification mark in the shape i
of a laundry mark. He was shown a
laundry mark on the other's clothes an£
asked to identify it. He was puzzled.
“That’s got me.” he confessed. “I
know the marks of all the well known
laundries, but I've never seen that sort
of marking before. Besides, it's green
thread, which is most rare.”
The other then explained. He had
just returned from a visit to America
and was carrying laundry souvenirs of
New York!
Supt. Savage, brown haired, good
looking, is the youngest of the six. He
is an ornithologist. He will tell you
| that there is only one satisfactory way j
!of getting rid of a body. The details
are not, however, for publication.
** * *
CO much for the Big Six themselves.
Their method, the famous Wensley
method, of working, does not make
such romantic reading as that of Sher
lock Holmes. In fact, it is nothing
more than one of those laborious '
j methods of crime detection which the ,
! celebrated Mr. Holmes never ceased to j
| ridicule, a method, nevertheless, which
! has proved its adequacy to the hilt, i
! Nowhere is it better demonstrated than j
| in the Gutterldge case—now assured of !
; a prominent place among the classic
crimes—the murder of a police officer
in September, which culminated in the
! arrest of the murderers six months
j later.
i Early on the morning of September
; plank In the platform. I hope they get
j it in before its over, so we can try It out
; and see if It works.
1 (Copyright. 19280
lock-up of a village 80 miles from the
smarting point. Inside the building was
the man he hud set out to find The
police of that place had observed a sus
plclous-looklns character walking about
carrying a small bundle arid hud
promptly locked him up An examina
tion of the bundle brought to light Jew
elry worth several hundred rupees.
In one instance the tracker’s skill al
most condemned an Innocent man. Two
sheep belonging to a government official
trad been stolen and the footprints were
found to be those of a man employed to
look after the public gardens.
The man was arrested, but when the
track was followed up It was found to
end opposite the police station, where
the skins of the sheep were discovered,
As It seemed unlikely that a thief would
deposit his booty under the very eyes ol
the police, a further investigation was
made, and It was eventually proved that
the sheep had been taken by the police,
who, to throw the trackers oft the
scent, had stolen sud worn the gar
dener’s shoes.
•
More than half the automobiles being
sold in Egypt this year are of Ameri
can make.
! 27 Wensley had a telephone call from
1 the police of Essex, the adjoining
i county to London. One of their men.
: Gutteridge. had been found dead in a
I lonely lane. He had received a fatal
shot, had staggered back and fallen,
and as he lay he had been shot again
through each eye. Wheel tracks showed
that an automobile had stopped at
that spot. The dead man had pencil
and note book out.
Detectives were dispatched. While
they were busy the discovery of an
abandoned, blood-stained car in a cul
de-sac on the outskirts of the city en
abled Wensley and his colleagues to re
construct the crime in its principle fea
tures.
OuM'-idge, on patrol at night, had !
recognr the doctor's car approach- 1
I ing iti car had been stolen from a j
doctor's garage), seen it occupied by j
strangers and had hailed it. No doubt!
he had blown his whistle and the thugs I
had stopped Gutterldge had started to !
ask awkward questions, and the ban- !
dits. seeing long terms of penal servi- !
tude ahead for carrying loaded fire- ;
; arms and driving in a stolen car— i
British law comes down with a heavy j
i hand on the armed criminal with a bad |
i record—had shot him.
Why had they then pursued him to
; the roadside and sent bullets crashing
! through each eye? Doubtless because
i they had a superstitious dread of the
• impression of themselves appearing on
the retina of the dead man’s eyes.
The Yard had three immediate clues: I
<1) the bullets extracted from the body, j
<2> the stolen car and (3) a cartridge
case left In the car.
They also had a description of the i
Deadly Diseases Are Conquered
BY ALAN MACDONALD. •
THE far-flung army of research
scientists, forever engaged in !
the war against the lorces of
death, report advances on all '
fronts. No less than 22 vic
tories over the satraps of human suf
fering have been won or consolidated
within the past year and a half, many
of them of major importance. The
crack enemy divisions of paresis and
pernicious anemia, long regarded as
fatally unconquerable, and accountable
for millions ot casualties since the age
old war began, have been routed and
relegated to a comparatively minor
place. Lasting triumphs have been
achieved against such powerful stub
born units as scarlet fever, erysipelas. •
sleeping sickness and cancer.
The victories were achieved at great 1
cost. Dr. Kideyo Noguchi, the heroic
Japanese research physician of the
Rockefeller Institute, and Dr. William
Alexander Young, his assistant, died
as a direct result of their drive against
the deadly African yellow fever. Dr.
Noguchi, who hunted germs around the
world as other men track big game,
went to Lagos, Nigeria, on the trail of
the yellow fever bacillus. One might
suppose that the germs were warned
of his coming, for shortly after his ar
rival he came down with the disease,
which yearly kills hosts of black men.
He was rushed to a hospital and
there, with himself as subject, he con
ducted research experiments from what
eventually proved his death bed. He
had a monkey Inoculated with the
disease. The monkey died. The doc
tor temporarily recovered, due, ac
cording to his own judgment, to in
oculation with the anti-yellow fever
germ which he himself developed some
years ago. Further experimentation
with fluids of the monkey resulted in
the capture and isolation of the germ
Dr Noguchi had come so far to find.
Forthwith, he and his aid. Dr. Young,
set about to develop a preventive vac
cine against this African scourge. But
the disease was not so easily subdued.
Dr. Noguchi was stricken with a re
turn of the fever, and this proved
fatal. Dr. Young died of the same con
tagion a tveek or so later. And other
men have taken up the fight that they
began.
The award of the 1927 Nobel prise for
medicine to Prof. Julius Wagner-
Jauregg of the University of Vienna
amounted to a decoration, and focused
the eyes of the w'orld for a time upon
one of the most interesting campaigns
of this eternal struggle- that of the
conquering of paresis It was not a
sudden victory. Prof, Wagner-Jauregg
began his work against the dread pa
ralysis many years ago. In 1917 the
disease was still considered incurable.
If paresis got you. as far as doctor*
were concerned you were doomed to
slow but inevitable death.
The Vienna scientist observed that
sufferers from paralysis usually showed
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* * flfe' •
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jXßlllilS
* HBan!S|r\3jltV*fjUQn
doctor’s instruments which had been
in the car, and which had disappeared.
They knew the type of gun from which
some, at least, of the fatal bullets had
been fired.
** * *
A ND , here Sir Wyndham Childs, the
chief of the secret political police
and counter-espionage, an ex-army offi
cer, butted in and made a significant
discovery. Childs is lean, polite, a nar
row-eyed lynx of a man. He was a
musketry expert in the armv. He ex
amined cartridge case, bullets and
photographs of the shot-riddled Lie
and found that <a) tha case was tint
of an obsolete Mark IV cartridge with
drawn from the army soon after the
war started. <b) one of the bullets
fired through the eyes had been pro
pelled by black powder, a detonation
for cartridges not used since 1894. and
(C) the other had been propelled by
cordite.
It was thus established that two men,
one of whom had a mixed assortment of
ammunition, were concerned in the
crime; and Childs could further say
that when a revolver was found the
breach shield of which duplicated the
peculiarities in the fatal cartridge case
—marks now known to be as Infallible
as fingerprints—that would be the
weapon with which the constable was
murdered.
In the process of testing these
theories the Yard chiefs examined over
1.30 Q revolvers, and spent days firing
bullets into wood and examining the
effect under the microscope. That
would have taken friend Holmes quite
a time, even with the assistance of Dr.
Watson.
Meanwhile months went by. No ar
rest. What were Wensley and his men
up to? They were looking for the
killer's gun, and conducting a system
atic comb-out of suspects and others.
Everv revolver that came into police
tv' . m, -e ~ •
'
// *
j
| “WITH A CRY OF RAGE BORIS LEAPED FOR THE BOY.”
| _______
~ -v .jy
1)R. HIDEYO NOGUCHI. WHO
SACRIFICED HIS FIFE IN ISO
FATING THE AFRICAN YEFFOW
FEVER GERM.
Improvement after recovery from an at
tack of some fever-producing disease.
Experimentally, he began producing
fever in animals and patients by inocu
lating them with ervsipelas germs, tu
berculin. typhoid vaccine and even poi
sons. But the victory was not to be
so simple. Years passed, and at last
the doctor hit upon the idea of trying
inoculation of patients with malaria
germs. This showed unusual promise
and he developed the idea. At last he
had a definite treatment. He allowed
malaria to have its way with the para
lytic for 8 or 10 days and then cured
the fever with quinine. The treatment
Is now being used all over the world,
and an average of one-third of the suf
ferers are cured outright, according to
reports, while at least 25 per cent can
be sure of improvement. One disease
had been Induced to betray another.
No less arresting is the recent triumph
of Drs. George R. Minot and William P.
Murphy of Harvard University over per
nicious anemia. Death had few more
mysterious or more effective allies.
About ninety out of every hundred suf
ferers from the malady died In 1926.
for Instance, 3.000 persons passed on
because of it in England and Wales
alone Today probably not more than
ten of every hundred are lost. The ta
jpQHK ''£? ufl | fl J «|P
■.■»i it«» , i i «jS4Hm4 1 HE^ml
hands went to Scotland Yard. The war
office co-operated. A weird and won
derful collection of guns accumulated.
Uneasy folk in illicit possession of re
volvers furtively dropped them. They
were fished out of rivers and off waste
land, and sent to the Yard. The owners
were hunted out and questioned.
The record office provided the names
of all criminals of violent tendencies
who had been liberated from prison in
the last two or three years They were
looked up. Thousands of men were
traced and interrogated. Detectives
shadowed suspects and kept watch for
wanted crooks who had eluded the
round-up. There were sudden raids
and surprise searches
The vulture-headed Wensley sat in
his office by the old river and, in the
course of months, saw his search nar
row down to six suspects. One was a
habitual criminal named Browne. Even
Dartmoor, where they tame tigers, had
not been able to tame him, and he had
served every day of his last sentence of
four years. Browne had eluded all
search.
** * *
CUDDENLY enter chance, the incal-
culable factor. In Sheffield, the
steel city of the Midlands, a recklessly
driven car collides with a local car and
goes on. The aggrieved local man
manages to note its number as it shoots
away. It is a London registration num
ber.
The Sheffield police ask the London
police to look it up. The latter report
back that the name is not known at the
address. It looks like a fake number.
Will Sheffield inquire further and re
port?
Sheffield gets busy and finds that a
local man was in the mystery car as
passenger. This man is an ex-convict.
He is questioned and discloses that the
driver was Browne. Browne has a ga
rage at Brixton.
bles have been reversed on this enemy
with a vengtCM^.
The inside ifV goes that Dr. Minot,
a distingulfed* investigator, in the
midst of a • successful life, was
stricken with diabetes, another until re
cently fatal sickness. The learned sa
vant stood among his laboratory appur
tenances and knew' that in four or five
years he must die. for such was the
best science could do against diabetes.,
Then out of Canada came word that
another research man. Dr. G. F. Bant-!
ing of Toronto, had discovered insulin, j
a preparation from the pancreas of j
sheep and oxen, that checks and some
times. as after events proved, cures the
disease. With insulin Dr. Minot could
live out his normal span of life.
The pancreas of sheep and oxen! No ]
doubt that directed the doctor's mind 1
in a naw direction, and after many ex
periments he announced that a simple
diet of liver was the cure for pernicious
anemia, an affliction in which the red
corpuscles of the blood are devoured,
apparently, by the white ones, with a
resultant slow but sure death. Liver, j
Dr. Minot found, contained some hlth- 1
erto unknown ingredient that Increases
red corpuscles and stops the disease.
The conquest of scarlet fever was ac->
compllshed by Dr. George F. and Gladys
H. Dick of the John McCormick Insti- I
tute for Infectious Diseases at Chicago, i
Antitoxins for the cure and prevention t
of diphtheria and smallpox had been '
found and used, and these two scourges
had been blocked in their raids and epi
demics; but scarlet fever had been much
more stubborn. Scores ot research
workers had striven in vain to find or ■
isolate the germ or cause of the disease. |
The Chicago doctors conducted thou- i
sands of experiments, inoculating ani-!
mate and finally volunteer humans with
the disease, and at last caught the germ, i
They then developed an antitoxin so
that ( humans can be vaccinated against
it, and also a skin test which deter- j
mines which Individuals are susceptible
and which immune to the fever The
lives of countless children undoubtedly i
have been saved by this victory of
science.
Erysipelas, or St Anthony's fire, as
the fulsome skin affliction has been
known since the beginning of medi
cine. is another of death's allies to
fall at last before the forces of mod
ern science. Dr. Konrad E. Birkhaug
of the University of Rochester recently i
developed an antitoxin treatment to I
be used in the eartiy stages of the ;
illness that has given remarkable re- !
suits. The Art* of St Anthony was j
never a disease of such high death <
rate as paresis or pernicious anemia,
but it entailed long periods of confine
ment and suffering
Dr Birkhaug s method, according to
statistics available at Bellevue Hospital,
This “leak” in Sheffield reaches the
hawks at the Yard. Instantly they
pounce. But the Flying Squad men And
that Browne is away. He has motored
to his old prison at Dartmoor to bring
a friend, a convict due for release, back
to London.
Here the tale touches fantasy.
Browne drives the released convict to
Scotland Yard, where he has to report
on entering the metropolis, and then
goes on to Battersea. The waiting de
tectives jump on him before he can
reach one of his several guns.
In the Yard they are on tenterhooks.
They have got one of the killers. But,
the evidence?
In Browne’* garage an • expert ex
amines the collection of guns. He
breaks one. Mark IV cartridges in the
cylinder and the breach shield dupli
cates the peculiarities in the fatal cart
ridge case. H« breaks another gun. It
contains an asstorment of ammuni
tion, two rounds of which hold black
powder propellant
And there arc the doctor's stolen In
struments !
Strange vanity! The killer, strong,
intelligent, cunning, ferocious, is so sure
of not being tracked that he has held
on to the very evidence needed to hang
him—the guns, the ammunition, the in
struments.
Ttye Yard's half-year's patient hunt
is at an end. All the detectives’ theories
have proved correct. They incidentally
have confirmed their favorite conten
tion: That detective work is only about
a 55 per cent factor in unraveling a
crime, the other 45 per cent being ac
counted for by the items of information
received—uniformity of style, careless
ness and vanity. In that order.
For months they had known as much
as Sherlock Holmes could have dis
covered by his celebrated deductive
method: but without that “information
received’’ they would still be looking
for Browne, and, lacking this interlock
ing system, this deadly close-woven net
for gathering information from every
comer of the island and getting action
on it from a central headquarters, not
all the Holmeses in the world could
have found Browme. let alone effected
an arrest and secured the essential evi
dence.
I New York City, where is maintained
one of the largest erysipelas clinics in
the world, has reduced the death rate
from 12 to 4 per cent.' and has cut the
; hospital period of sufferers in half. In
i vest iga tors first got track of the erysipe
j las germ back in 1831, but though re
search may be said to have been prac
i tically continuous from that time, it
was not until Dt. Birkhaugs expert
-1 ments that any way was found to
i checkmate it.
Less spectacular, but from a broad
! viewpoint Quite as important, were the
advances made against the enemy in
the long fight that has been waged in
what might be called the cancer sector.
Tests announced by Dr. Howard B. An
dervont showed, for one thing, that can
cer in chicken can be rendered inactive
by small quantities of aluminum and
calcium salts And German scientists
have proved that under certain eondi-
DR. F. tl. BANTINtI OF TOROX
TO. THF. DISCOVERER OF IX.
SI 1 IX.
tions healthy cells of human tissue can
; be changed to malignant or cancerous
cells by arsenic Whether the first tests
| ix»int the way to any aid for human
| cancer sufferers, and whether the Ger
man experiments shed any further light
on the problem of their cure, is highly
problematical- but science regards both
as distinct contributions. Some day.
they believe, will come the cure for can
cer. just as did the cure for anemia or
the deadly paralysis.
But If the men who brought about
these front-line victories against the
great enemy bore what seems the brunt
of the fighting, there were supporting
workers whose researches undoubtedly
prefaced further triumphs of tomorrow
' x vS
** >
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