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Medical Jurisprudence - Daguerreotypes and Portraits 
1860 
  
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LL/35042 
  
Published in "A Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence" by Francis Wharton & Moreton Stillé (Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 1860), p.939, paragraph 1221 and footnotes.
 
º1221. d. Daguerreotypes and portraits. This method is now coming in vogue in the police departments of our great cities. Its practical value in the determination of questions of identity has not yet been the subject of legal consideration. (f)
 
Pictures, however, have not been without their use for detective purposes. A capital conviction is reported by Mr. Wills to have been secured by the prisoner having given his portrait to a youth, which enabled the police, after watching a month in London, to recognize the culprit.(g)
 
Footnotes
 
f For the following note I am indebted to the officers having charge of this special department (1860) in the Mayor's office in Philadelphia.
 
"During the mayoralty of the Hon. John M. Scott, in 1842-43, rough pen and pencil sketches were made of the countenances of the prisoners the remembrance of whom it was thought desirable to perpetuate. Of these there now remain on file, &c, sketches of twelve individuals; this may be considered as the first approach towards the formation of a Rogues' Gallery; these have been found useful in a number of instances. During the administration of Mayor Gilpin from 75 to 80 daguerreotypes and armbrotypes of noted men in police annals were made the nucleus of a gallery, though kept in a trunk under lock and key most of the time. They were seldom exhibited to others than officers of the detective department of police. With the present administration the gallery of photographs commenced, and has been carried forward to its present condition, numbering now (April 24, I860) 266 portraits. It has been thought desirable, in furtherance of police ends, to add, as far as possible, the portraits of men, notorious in other cities, but who occasionally visited us professionally. Exchanges have been made to some little extent with New York, Albany, Pittsburg, &c, and pictures received have been hung up in our gallery. As it regards the pictures of men known to the police as rogues of a high grade, very few of these, as yet, are known to exist, in any portion of the land. Generally, these men will not, under any consideration, sit for their portraits. When in custody, and are therefore secure, the question is often asked, How do you get the consent of these men and women to sit and have their likenesses taken to be hung up for general exhibition? The answer is, Sometimes by threats of thirty days' imprisonment, as the alternative of refusal; at others, and in most cases, the parties have been arrested for the commission of some crime, and having years of imprisonment before them, are reckless and regardless of consequences so far as their pictures are concerned, and yield readily to the demand therefor. The greater portion of the pictures in our gallery are the pictures taken under these circumstances; and, therefore, for any practical purposes, are by the writer deemed almost useless especially so with regard to the younger portion of them. They alter so materially in person, &c, as often to be hardly recognized after years of imprisonment.
 
"The one great idea in the establishment of a Rogues' Gallery should be to enlarge the acquaintance of detective officers with individuals, with whom they have to do, and thus to give the officers greater facilities in the performance of official duty."
 
g Wills, Circum. Ev. 95. 
 
 
  
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