THE CITINA MATE SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1955.
Page
BACK-ROOM BOYS OF THE CID THE GHOST OF
A PEEP INTO THE FORENSIC SCIENCE LAB
By William Smyly
SAT between à col- growing, and Dr lection of doors at one Teng-cheung
hopes
end of a long passage day to bring its staff
Pang his girl friend; the year of Jahn Halliday Christie's some Reginald
*1798 murders *at Rillington
up Place; and of Mrs Merrifield,
on the third floor of to the full complement of a who was hanged for using rat Police Headquarters. Behind Home Office Laboratory in poison to speed a legacy. the doors opening off this England.
passage.
છે.
to
tools and cidin of Britäla there were precisely
with Vic scven murders.
menico-
Starffen. Fusco, and Bloom,
EMOVING
Dr. Pang Teng-cheung making blood-grouping tests.
Practitioner. During the year Dr Pang's department prepared evidence in 2,000 cases concerning blood
21 cases. groups and
of rape, besides abortions. infanticides,
ing and wounding.
Much of his time then was It was a year when
news- taken up with the job that all the back-room The work includes tech- papers became near hysterical doctors abhor-giving techzical boys of the Hongkong CID nical assistance the and foreign Journals speculated evidence in court. However, Dr carried out their peculiar Police at scenes of crime, on British morals, and even the Pang realised that it was a job tourist trade was affected. Yet for a specialist, and began to investigations.
analysis and examination of just get when in the whole make a study of forensic science, murders, sexual crimes, shoot- A messenger who
ap- weapons, peared with a file walked ing; interviews silently down to the farthest tims and suspects;
1951-52. the year of door--he was carrying the legul post-mortem; and at latest batch of fingerprints tendance at courts. During there were 14 murders. to be sorted and filed by the past year the Depar
In 1950-51, when Derek Pool Inspector R. G. Griggs ment saw 379 sucpects, shot a constable near Chatnam Fingerprint Bureuy,
"visited 83 scenes of crime, Barracks and then fought it cut tested 157 lots of clothing with armed police from bar- ricaded quarters in his parents or weapons, and
home, there were only five. evidence
EUPEN DOOR
Through an
open
Limes.
door
on my left two laboratory assistants
in white
couts hunted over a pile of reputable other
clothing...
d1-- An-
in
court
Kuve 148
the
ESTATISTICS
Cold
*
He stated academically, "Some people say that sexual crimes
the. happen in
hot weather. My statistics show When, in 1949, a scholarship that nearly ali happen t was offered at Edinburgh in this change in the weather. In the are 100 subject, he applied and was the hot weather people best qualified man available. Inzy. In the
weather, On his return to Hongkong the they are too cool. It is when Police Department applied for they get unsettled. When we to get a spate of his permanent services, and he are going
can feel it in my learned that his application for them the scholarship had been streng- blood!" ly backed," without his knowing it, by cecummendations from the Hongkong CID.
Dr Pang's view on
Later Dr Pang was joined by Dr T. M. Tech, remarkable for so-called "crime wave" in
Yet a Hongkong, smaller
a command of English at least Britain today are original total area than Greater Lendbo, equal to a duel with the sharp
less than
a third of its est barrister and spoken in the He told me that ne hau been with
populator, and with crimes of smooth, over-assented tons of Hooked through 11 quite worried, during his violence on the decrease, there Kensingtori. Chelsea and May- microscope; then looked up iz-month course in Britain were 24 murders last year (two fair, where he was brought up. and spoke softly. He was studying forensic medicine giving some sort of order; because his studies had been
an hampered by a one man went off into
"serious the rest, adjoining durk room filled shortage of suitable crime
complicated electricul
practical work
witn apparatus.
Then the door in front
to provide tur une student.
of me opened and a young SHORTAGE
girl looking rather pleased
with herself Was hurried He suggests, quite seri-,
out. She was accompanied ously, that the shortage of by a very pretty police suntable crime at home is so woman who smiled
showed me in.
and severe
that it would pay United Kingdom authorities to run their courses of forensic medicine in Hong-t kong.
It was the Department of -Forensic Science.
Inside I found an ener getic Chinese doctor in his early thirties who started here the Department. from scratch after after-
war.
BUSY FLOOR
.
The Department
"You get as much ex- perience here in two months
saic.
month!), five. infanticides, 11 In 1950 attempted murders, there were 29 murders besides
Dr Pang graduated fnem Hongkong University in 1941, serving as a Flight-Surgeon in the Chinese-American Air Force through the war. He returned to the Hongkong Medical De parment in 1945."
Dr Teoh's course of special study lasted 18 months and in- clusied six months' special study in Copenhagen Now be is equipped to take over much of the practical work, releasing Dr Pang för part-time work lectur- ing to ourses of senior detec- tives in the Hongkong Police Force, and to fifth-year medical students at Hongkong University.
Many activities are funny. Some are sad. Some of them demand that a tired. doctor goes out to work on one case all night after on another case in court most of the day. But all of them concern very human people.
of the Department's moving. Some
J
EAN IDEA
2
testifying
Pang Speaking of thise. Dr looked up
trom passage
Jurispru- Taylor's "Medical dence." It went;
perhaps this will give a Tough idea of the purpose of the duties of a our work medical witness are different
those from
of a Generat
JAPAN'S HOUR OF
DECISION
By George North
Tokyo. iron ore to keep the machines dropped to $536 million from a peak of $809 million the year must come before-just enough to give the
Now
élection
as in a year at home," he THE lights burn late bu the coal
these nights in the acrcts the Pacife from the Japanese economy a bad shake. Japanese foreign office. United States. And at Hatoyania fought the last Figures seem to support Premier Ichiro Hateyama aremendous cost.
against a background Wages are rising: General of cotton mills producing only the argument. The com-grows restless.
MacArthur's' lessons Statements, denials;
AD percent of capacity, mounting democracy had bined police forces of the
than more
and 2 inflation
staggering counter-rumours political effect. British Isles
rumours, have 20
And it still public debt, out. pour
Newspapermen takes three or four Japanese More American aid might
the work do
while. But bewildered, diplomats do are which average of ten murders
of one help for
can go
being American, German, or English economy are uneasy.
man. For the Japanese worker financed by hand-outs for ever.
he has built up around him year to deal with.
self occupies seven
rooms.
4
ir:
of the horsepower in machinery
а
In 1949-50," when Dr Where is Japan going? has only a third to a quarter on the busy third floor of Pang took his course under Into the neutral camp and behind him. CID Headquarters and em- the world authority, Sir a deal with Red China?
the Western at Edin- Into
camp ploys two doctors, who are Sydney Smith, on loan to the Police from burgh, there were only five for good and all? Or just the problem wouldn't be solved. reached, 87,500,000"
nowhere?
the Medical Department, a murders near enough to police chemist with the give any useful practical rank" of sub-inspector, and work for his course.. four police lab assistants
and clerks with the rank
of sergeant and
constable
constable, THE PEAK
ce
Even If the
at the produced
goods could be right prices,
The Asian market once ab- No one can Bay for
sure. sorbed nearly all that Japan The best bet is that Hatoyama could produce. But countries will eventually line up solidly like India are industrialising with the West. That is
to themselves, and every new doubt what he would
to machine in India is apt to make do. But that is the dictate of one redundant in Japan. Indo
national China is Indonesia,
China
the head.
the
The stomach calls elsewhere.
For Japan is in a jar...
The year 1952-53 was pro-
One of them is a woman police pretty one who showed me nounced a peak in the "crime wave." It was the year when 16-year-old Christopher Craig shot a policeman in a roof-top gangster battle and his friend Production
in.
has
come &
costs
in chaos.
So
£5
with its 400,000,000
מס,
ΠΟ
continues
Meanwhile, as the economy staggers, population to mount. By last year, IL 17,000,000 mate mouths to feed than there were in 1939.
And the population is "getting increasingly restive,
The average hourly wage in cotton industry, for instance, is about 12 cents. the Japanese Just over 430,000 workers are currently unemployed even at that.
mid-nineteenth
A nation which prides itself} customers lies bebind an iron on its almost one hundred per- Already there is widespread curtain ready to do business, sent literacy rate and on being the mast industrialised and unemployment. Few Industries but at "a price. A political Westernised nation In the are working at full capacity, price official recognition of Red Orient cannot be expected ta
pit up with are rising. China. Machinery is wearing out and Japan's postwar economic century wages and conditions
problem was eased by American for long.
the influx of
must find a way Hatoyama machines came American troops-and money out. No one can blame him world. However, it is still then went off to keep a date with churia and China. So did the year American military spending China,
The lab long way in five years, and Derek. Bentley was hanged; there is nothing replace it. in much of its equipment, when Miles Giffard murdered ranks with some of the his parents at St Austel and Before the war, the coal to aid and later by best forensic labs in the dumped them over a cliff-and turn Japan's
almost entirety from Man- for the Korean war. But last for looking longingly at Red
·MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
CHIEF IF I COULD || NO, THE BAIL'S
ONLY HAVE MORE TIME WITH HIM!
HERE --WE HAVE TO
RELEASE THEM
THAT'S THE LAVY.
SNAP
MOUTHPIECE, YOU SPRUNG | NOTHING.
JUS JUST IN TIME. SAY
I JUST
TINY, WHAT HAPPENED
| IN THE CHIEF'S OFFICE?)
FELL: ASLEEP
MY MEN ARE TRAILING THEM, NIGHT) AND DAY.
By Lee Falk and Phil Davis
A LOT OF GOOD THAT DOES - WITH THAT TIME BOMB TICKING AWAY AMONG MY
PICTURES.
AND BURIED IN THE REMOTE: WAREHOUSE--TEN MILLIONS. WORTH OF PAINTINGS--
tick-tick
TALK
ABOUT
MAGIC!
Have you seen
Admiral
AIR CONDITIONERS. ALA
AND REFRIGERATORS.
HATPIN MARY
D
From GERALD ARNOLD
Johannesburg, cries to arms that she learned
R Theophilus Ebenezer from Mary.
Donges, South Africa's Now the awesome black- smooth, stay-at-home Minis haired Jessie has jumped into ter of the Interior, has dis- battle again prepared to pick or pin the studious-looking turbed the grave of Doctor as Mary would have splendid riotous character done. known as Hatpin Mary.
She claims she is unable to
He did this by giving get her passport renewed. It is notice of a bill rendering the
a green. South African passport "
sort for which the half a million British pass- Minister hopes most British ports useless. except as & subjects will exchange their means of permanent escape from his vigilance.
blue ones
With one of these green docu- ̈
ments you can dodge in and
Union-born British subjects out of the Union nt will of all colours can travel the always provided that you are world on them, he allowed. But neither
polis.
criminal
дог
Com-
Jessie is neither red nor rascal.. Yet she is presumably suspect to Dr Donges' depart
ment
to get in and out of their own munist, country the 500,000 people who hold or are entitled to hold British passports must have The Laternaditional exit and entry per concerned with treatment af d'sease or accident and the aving of life, but the function of the former is to assist the lare (inter aliaj not only in identifying the perpetrator of 1. crime but also in securing the acquittal of an innocent person from a crime sprongiv.) isip. To return to South Africa Africans with imputed to him.”
11
EMORE DRAMA
:
ONE-WAY TRIP
Without themï a British paus- port is worth only a one-way
because she cannot get a new passport. The present siluation would never have been tolerated by Mary, says Jessie loudly.
་
So the legend of Hatpin Mary has been revived. South British passports
without that special permission see the new bill as a new threat will land the offender in gaol to the English-speaking com- for between three months and munity. two years.
.
"That is equally
Now Hatpin (or Pickhandle) important
was a roaring redhead though not often known to the Mary public-to secure the acquittal whose best batting were fought of innocent persons," Dr Pang during the bloody strikes that said, "In court Dr Tech and paralysed the gold mining coun- are required to give medical try round Johannesburg in 1922. evidence which is the result of our own deductions after an examination and confidential in terview. Anything the suspect tells at such an interview is a professional secret-even if he tells that he is guilty."
in
DUAL NATIONALITY
It is almost impossible to held both a Union and a British pass- port and South African citizens are encouraged to hold their own Passporta rather than British. The idea of dual nationality up- set the Minister Intensely.
(nec Fitz Mary Crawford gerald), depending on the com- nando action her amazon shock troops were engaged in, either
His explanation that his legis- clubbed the cops over the head with her helve or punctured lation is intended to make travel strike-breaking tram-drivers in easier would most certainly have their tenderen! parts with a 10- got the horse laugh from Mary. inch long hatpin.
And South Africans. are Pickhandle Mary-suffragette, wondering how long it would labour, organiser and leader, have taken her to burst through. Nor what an opposition MP called Fabian was quite a girl. Wis there 2 disciple more "this
barbed wire creeping than
This curious, friendly, formal, but busy little Depart ment, buried in the CID, con- sists of a library, a nauseating tidy-looking three offices, and 0 small well equipped laboratory.
museum
But when the pretty police-devoted to her
Jessle barricade." woman showed me out of it, I Macpherson, present national
There has been a huge public left a place that handles more chairman of the South African" human drams in a year titan Labour Party and Mayor of outcry over the Passport Bill all the cinemas of Hongkong put Johannesburg during 1945-48. together.
Next week-The Ballistics Department,
and it is lucky that the govern- ment majority has only Mary's When Mary died Mrs ghost to steamroller. I Mary Macpherson did battle for her, herself were alive it would be She reared out the rip-snorting some scrap.
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