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THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, APRIL

Concluding: Back-room Boys Of The CID

THE EXPERT WHO STUDIES BULLETS

T

an

By William Smyly

HE crack of a pistol or a sandbag would do as well, But the advantage" of cotton fired at close range and cardboard is that they stop set my head rocking the bullet fast, and so gently like

Easter that it is undamaged. The use belfry. As the

of these methods illus- ringing made cleared, a quiet voice was trated by a fairly typical case

from Mr Ewins' records: saying something about "a beautiful bullet with every mark as clear as crystal,”

want

A shot is fired and a man is killed. Mr Ewins is in the first party of experts called to the scene. His job is to work

war Mr

Ewins

found an opportunity to supply a pasty of Japanese sportsmen with just such bulleis when they were going out on a shool-

The reasch for this is a cutting During the tool is used to cut the lanxis and grooves to any length of barrel, which is made of high tensile steel. The tool be sharpened fre- quently, and each time it leaves ing party

different never heard the stone it has a misroscopic edge. So if the tool again. is tharpened after each cut, each cut will have different micro scopic scorings,"

blanter

the

Not only this. But the tool is getting

during course of each cut so even the begining and the end of each cut will be slightly different under the microscope,

near Shanghai He from the party

Mr Ewins examining bullets under the comparison

microscope..

i

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THE BATTLE OF THE TACHE

By J. W. TAYLOR

IT'S going to be a ciosis bition to join the Handlebar

shave, but it may well Club”.

be that the girls will sways postwar tache was

affair Masudiya Din, of the balance in the Battle of Bombay, had taken 11 years to the Moustache According grow. He wore it in a coll to some experts of male rund his ears and down hi

shirt front. The all-time, re habits, the wartime boom in cord was established in 1931 b 'taches handlebar, crass- Ahir Desur Arian, of Kathidwar, bar, large and small is dia, with his 68-inch. growth, worn furled in a deep the wane in Britain.ar shape. Others agree that so far as But.

But whatever the signs that the handlebar variety of the male face of Elizabethan

England is becoming facial adornment is concern-shaven, the famous Handlebar

clean ed, it may linger yet longer, Club continues to admit new but they have their doubts, merabers whose top-lip "bloom"

On

ever,

21

chib

Quite lot of feminine conforms to

certain students of male habits, how standards as to shape, length

do not share this view, and texture. Beards are out. which is not unnatural when so

an idea that originated in

of

mary of them are silll tickled 29 club' was formed in 1947

When slow burning cordite explodes, pressure bulids up the base of the cartridge cose on slowly, Back pressure blows if you have never heard out if he can from what point the sound of a six-shooter the shet was fired and what it

to the breech block and Bring pin, marking that with any teol fired in a small room and hit; then make a general guess the experience of about what has happened to it

marks there. The sides of the cartridge case expand to fill the and where it may have gone, being deaf for a while, you and then find it.

chamber and make a

a gas-tight may have been fired, which box in the Northamptonshire don't have to visit a Wild

· And when a bullet is bred, seal so these pick up any tool he must judge from tattoo" Regiment which he joined at his West saloon on

or deposits Perhaps the dead man was this microscopic secring is trane markings that are there. Then marks cow pun-

of burning home, Brackley, at the age of 17 going is the House of Commons, powders or ash on flesh, or and with which he served for so often a guide to male fashions chers' pay day. "Cowboys

and foibles. Here of late there expanding gases to escape is tote six shooters in Arizona

down the barrel, blocked only the weapons and charges used.

has been a gradual decrease in Mr Ewins's the number of members sport now only for films."

by a lead cr nickel-plated bullet

To be hit at close range by shoes still betrays

militarying the top lip growth. The they buy Cadillacs "instead

Just big enough to at the barrel

ugly and make + gas-tight a 45 bullet is like being hit education.

most recent census on this dis- of Palermos" by writing

seal. The bullet is forced down by two tons. Yet bullets react

closed, a mere 82 taches. L'a drafts on

New York

Mr Ewins is also the Once in Shanghai

chap company 601 male LIFS,

of the barrel with a pressure of Strangely. city bank. New methods

between four and 13 tons, and the police captured a desperado consulted by the Chief Officer many former political and leaves the muzzle with a in whom they found 14 such of the Fire Brigade before military war leaders having get fatter profits out of fat-

velocity of between 450 and bullets which they had shot licences are issued for com- long since given up its cultiva ter cattle

- and

2,500 feet per second.

into him at close range during mercial blasting, in Hongkong tin. 白 gun battle the previous so he is the one to blame when

safer.

2

and

they're

But the chan to see for this old-fashioned experience is Mr F. A. Ewins of the Hongkong CID. who keeps a couple of stuffed shooting boxes in soundproof diet opening off his office on the third floor of Police Headquarters.

*

You can recognise this floor from Queen's Road by looking for Inspector R. G. Griggs's

cabinets

in

Cling

north

to

th:

these

Identification Eureau at the

and. Next #windows comes the Photo

graphic Section. Dr. Pang and Science is at the other end. And Farensic Mr Ewing comes between.

his

Department

VELOCITY

rlanding near an open window ferred to it, and can be identised the only way left for the ranidelathing, and his knowledge of seven years.

TELL-TALE

The shine

on

all your windows get blown in.

near

-member

by a moustache. They are un- the RAF in wartime. Two mistakably in favour of the its leading spirits are stage and

radio continued growth of the 'tache.

staz Professor Jimmy Ed-

and

BBC sports-com- As one young thing so succinctly Wards

"A kiss from a clean- Erch jour a panel.

mentator Raymond Glendenning, Put it shaven man is like pork with-

of judges with-aworris a cup and the title out the crackling or beef with prime

Handlebar

bo the out horseradish,"

Pointer to the way things are biggest and best

whose moustache is

THE "PRIME"

Reigning "Prime" is 45-year- old Glasgow portrait painter, John Roy, whose elegant ginger moustache sweers a goodly 184 ind inches.

"Jimmy" Edwards,

whose handlebar tache stretches eight inches from tip to tip, sounded an ominous note as to the future of the moustache when bemoaning the fact that this accursed thing clogged the flow every time he had a "cuppa" or got soaked in the suds when he lowered a pint. He was all for

WARTIME BOOM

Britain's wartime boom

in

com

St moustaches, particularly in the having it off, but it has be

So the base of the cartridge, week its walls, and the bullet, all

And

ch If blasting is necessary doctons were puzzled carry

Identifiable permanent marks of the place where they Territories more

suicide in the New the mountainside reached the short sharp climax which there were two holes in. they

recently in Francis School shortly. where RAF, was due to the shortage of are building a new ex- razor blades and the women. of their manufactured existence.

a man's chest, but no exit tension, he will not only be

be Thousands of £ne specimens holes in his back and no there to see that the school is luxuriated into the peace, in- bullets inside. Mr Ewins wamed and evacuated. He will cluding the magnifcent blcom showed that there was only also lay the first charge him reared after long and anxious which had entered self., and further charges will hours of cultivation by ex-RSM the chest, been defected, made have to keep to the same size. Reginald Jago, a Sheldon, De- apparatus which Mr a circuit and came out very

von, hotelier. With much care And once every few months, and Ewils uses for this kind of near the hole where it had Mr Ewins is the chap who goes identification" is a comparison gone in. Two bullets photographed under the comparison

OVC to Kowloon City Police mer microscope one which you look microscope and showing identical marks.

bonfire and through with both eyes and He may also be asked how Station to make hand he twiddles knobs that and is expected to make his fireworks. In some cases, where

The

one bullet

come so much his trade mark

now that he fears the fury of. his fana were he to razor IL

for

This is in contrast to Holly- wood actor, Frank Morgan, who stred his grey moustache and £2,500. HIS wavy hair policy calls for a regular trim of both growths by a skilled and responsible hairdresser,

Meanwhile, two girls write to the papers;

The Arst me I had a 'idss

writes behind ed."

years, he developed it from

devotion over 13 long

toothbrush"

specimen.

into the 12-inch pride of Army

Then tragedy.

a

work with both hands: In each long ago a weapon was bred, destory npply of ses stated messes all over the country. from a moustache I was thrill-. arrange position of each bullet deductions from the amount of an unauthorised manufacturer practical joker crept up er case, till he gets the marks corrosion that has taken place his factory and seized

has used dangerous materials,

his body on the window side. ribilty of error. when shot, and the bullet left by the expert without any pes

Police quads are called inta

The marks in the barrel made of one to it so exactly on to help search the Bower beds

by the cutting tool are part of the marks of the other that a and garden..

would think he was the permanent features of any, stranger firearm Rust or corrosion..can looking at one object instead of add new marks, which will be the halves of two separate Although Mr Ewins has been a" policeman

with

transferred to the bullets passing objects four inches apart, or worked

cannot ob the Police Forces in Shanghai

through, but they and Hongkong since 1828, his Job of Ballistics Officer here ist

s civilian appointment. He is, In fact, the Hongkong Gavetu ment expert on guns and plosives.

The small shooting boxes are an example of "gently does it One of them is Alled with cotton waste, through which 4 child could push a pencil. But with

ainuzzle velocity of 900 feet

the per second,

bullet hasn't time to work its way politely past the Abrea like pencil. Instead it barges through, tying self up in a clot cotton like a bug in a cocoon. 7.It comes to a stop in about

nine inches.

a

of

The other shooting box is a

pile of corrugated cardboard, and finding the bullet is even easier. You just raise a few sheets, and there it is lying be- tween "within six inches.

buy but which case-but the bullet, was found, still lies in a pure cabine waiting for the pistol which fired it If that pistol literate

the old. Only by re-

But even this is not all.

14 ever brought in however moving the barrel and Afting a much it has been used sinice new one can be the gun's charac- and however erroded it has teristics be changed. become (to long as it can still fire), or if any other bullet brought in that has been fired from it the CID will have one more link to work on in unsolved, crime,

an

In the case of the killing, re- ferred to, the shot was fired from an automatic pistol which has automatic ejection-so the And for the CID no case is cartridge was also found and ever closed-until it is solved. is in the hands of Mc Ewins. For this type of identification And the cartridge too can be ---Anding out if a certain bullet positively identified

with

At this

crackers

off

handlebar

one. The other Inches says: "My fance has grown a In moustache. I think it makes the him look like a spiv; my mother

bim and sipped stocks

the from since firing, and his knowledge his

doused and the fire- later County of relevant moisture and tem- perature conditions.

court arisen reckons be could be taken for destroyed by "drown- "assailant humbly time of year Hongkong's moist

Ing." But normally, if it is for his misdeed, and agreed to a bomb-throwing anarchist; my climate and sea ale would possible to move them the pay the aggrieved Reginald a father says he will never be corrode a barrel within a few natural way is not only mare sum of money, Mr Jago after lieve the young man's intentions

but the same barrel effective, it is so much more wards said: "This has set we are honourable.

back three years in my might remain bright for "a amusing too.

am The Battle of the tache is on!. month afterwards safe in a dry drawer.

hours,

When the tell-tale marks have been arranged hike this, a Atted to the gadget camera swings into place and photo- graphs the result. This is the picture that appears in court to BONFIRE illustrate Mr Ewin's evicence when it is called for.

is

;

Bullets can make a bad flight. In fact, however, M. Ewins in the air, and strike sideways. often challenged in A high velocity bullet can bore court. He remains one of the a man as clean as a rifle barrel CID back-room boys we do and do no harm, or strike hard But tissue and blew up. A low not hear of

very often.

can lodge in the there are many other calls an velocity bullet

He is sometimes tissue cr be defected. Some- or operat times a defective charge can

was fired by a certain gun-Mr gun that fired it, or with any his time. Ewas comparer the bullet which other cartridges fired by the present in mortuary did the killing with a new bullet same gun, fired into his shooting box. The

ing theatre when pallets are drop a rifle bullet ten yards in extraz.ed. He advises on the front of a colder shooting on probable (or often improbable). the range. course which à bullet takes inside a body as well as out-

one may be badly damaged When a bullet is fired, the during its ricochetting fight, propelling explosion presses The other is perfect"a beauti- equally in every direction.

Mr Ewins declares, in his ful bullet". But both will have Cordite, which is normally used side it, and the behaviour of a favourite calch phrase: "Once a

a bullet. the marks made by the barrel for propellent charge, is

He inspects arms and bullet has been fired no one can relatively slow-burning cx- ammunition

e on the tell what is going to happen to through which they were fired.

advise issan of licences. plosive and gives a long slow

him it" And that phrase comes push. A high explosive like come for disposal the

caches

and explosives. breech, gun barrels are also subject to and

and probably unearthed or hauled up from the "infinite variety of nature:" propel bits of the firer's hand welis.

cases of gunshot his opinion is asked it is impossible for two of them further than it would blow the wounds, to be identical.

'cust of the shattered bullet. on the range at which the shot

Like Angerprints, these marks

two of them, stopped from the max-made grooves in TNT would shatter both bullet of rusty war relics periodical after 34 years playing with guns

There are many ways of stopping a bullet. A steel plate

In

Before joining the Shanghai Police in 1928, he was battalion shot and weapon training instruc-

A GHOST HAUNTS THE KREMLIN

GHOST has returned

to 'the Kremlin after more than two years

out in the void.

оле

By JOHN ATKINSON

the Communist Party constitu- ton.

Ztdanov, whose ghest now re- turns to the Kremlin scene, andi peers quizzically at Malenkov. all-out regimentation of artists, admired his card-index memory They included security chief Zhdanov's name had not made musicians, writers and in and groomed him as his succes- Lavrenti Beria and two of his the headlines since the "doctors' tellectuals on the tough, anti- sor Poker faced Malenkov underlings; M. D. Rhummin And its return is

and plo" in January, 1953. But Western line dictated by Stalin, moved with precision up the Victor Abakumov. Malenkov now Moscow Radio is starring more sign that the new with whom he had worked ladder of prestige.

had all of the shot. Then he him "for his part in drafting rulers of Russia, Com- closely for 20 years,

seemed safe.

some of the sharpest points in THE FACTS vault forward to munist Party chief "Krush-

Under the, dia dictator's January 13, 1853. Early that

But working against him was chev and Premier Bulganin, guidance and protection, the star morning Moscow startled the are preparing to put ex- of Zhdanov ros until he was world by announcing that nine the toughest adventurer in the Premier Malenkov on trial regarded as Stalin's chosen beir doctors, including the Kremlin Soviet Union, Communist Party possibly for treason," pos- to the Premiership and his auto medical chief, Professor. F. I.

Krushchey it was who tamed sing by secret ballot, and-o matic successor as Party chief Yegorov, had been arrested and sibly for conniving at with the power that position that they had confessed to the rebellious. Ukraine after this point de stressed by radio murder, and perhaps for gives over Russia's 200 million keliling Andrei Zhdanov by World War Two. He was help speakers the strict method of ed by Colonel Ivan Serov, a dealing with the affairs of Party both.

people.

giving him the wrong drug,

man with a terrifying record as members,” They also admitted plotting to a liquidator, kill Marshal Govarov, Zhdanov's

wartime

zald commander, Moscow, and it" branded the doctors as British agents. 12.

The ghost is that of An- drei Zhdanov, a burly, dark- haired man with a dandified fash of teeth and a trick of

extending one hand, Caesar-

like when speaking."

Only Rival

The only possible rival to

and In less than two months.

chief Nikita Krushchev,

Secret Police

And

they-as Malenkoy's

Zhdanov's junior both in age Stalin had died from stroke enemies came

Zhdanov was Georgi Malenkov,

Kremlin secretary.

1

and prestige.

To see how the stage has been

N

set for his return-sponsored by

Moscow Radio and to' sense the

terror this spectre could strike

THE

HA is given credit for the election of

Malenkov has not been seer in public since March 22. He is presumably stili a Party member. But THE FACTS Acad Zhdmov's ghost pose these questionst

"Are Party chief Krushchev

At once. Malenkov succeeded FACTS just two months ago and Premier Bulganin prepar him as Fremier and took full Now comes the Brst rengation, power. And inside hither Of February 7 Colonel ing to deel trichly with as the constitution While the rest of the world month the nine doctors were Seruv was given a Cabinet seat Malenkoy

freed. Malenkov must certainly as Ministry of Security in dewees?

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purge

with the rival;

Lep

Société

Suisse Pour l'Industrie Horlogère

intol

he hearts of Malenko? and was talking in the summer of have had a hand in that charge of the secret police The And will the ghost be This satriends just look-au 1948 about the swift brilliance...

same day, seven new Judges sent Games at THE FACTS as given by the were appointed to the Supreme court -of-the- Olympic-

Wembley, the Kremlia an- Soviet newspaper, Pravda, are Court which tries traitors: Handsome Andrel Zhdanov nounced "with great scrrow" these "The artists were was appointed by Stalin to run that Zhdanov had died after mistake. The charges against And the next day, February the civilian side of Leningrad's a long and sorous Ziness. Its the doctors were false. Their Mainly admitted his "guut defence in World War Two nature has never been explain- testimony and admissions were and mistakes and

obtained by the Ministry of Prime Minister, Security

through ** methods, named “his; successor, Mars -wes Malenkov's turn strictly forbidden by law, The Nikolai, Bulganin -- Later, as Soviet culture chief in Boskar Stalin, made him a guilty persona have been arc And this polifical Zhdanov Wal responsible for the: senfor.

in the Party, rested

Dead formseny a triend of And

under the military command of edge Marshal Leonid GovE NOW

Cated

Genera

Switzerland.

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