head, he is bad at paying his debts; if worn straight on the top, he is probably honest but very dull.
The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with short steps with much arm action; the nervous man’s hurried, jerky stride; the slow slouch of the loafer; the smooth, quick, and silent step of the Scout, and so on.
Can you tell their characters by the way they wear their hats?
Practise Observation
With a little practice in observation, you can tell pretty accurately a man’s character from his dress. The boots are very generally the best test of all the details of clothing. Sometime ago, I was with a lady in the country, and a young lady was walking just in front of us.
“I wonder who she is?” said my friend.
“Well”, I said, “Maybe you will know if you know whose maid she is.”
The girl was very well dressed, but when I saw her shoes I guessed that the dress had belonged to someone else, had been given to her and refitted by herself—but that as regards shoes she felt more comfortable in her own. She went up to the house at which we were staying—to the servants’ entrance—and we found that she was one of the maids.
I once was able to be of service to a lady who was in poor circumstances. I had guessed it from noticing, while walking behind her, that though she was well dressed the soles of her shoes were in the last stage of disrepair. I don’t suppose she ever knew how I guessed that she needed help.
It is an amusing practice, when you are in a railway carriage or omnibus with other people, to look only at their feet and guess, without looking any higher, what sort of people they are, old or young, well-to-do or poor, fat or thin, and so on, and then look up and see how near you have been to the truth.
I was speaking with a detective not long ago about a gentleman we had both been talking to, and we were trying to make out his character.
I remarked, “Well, at any rate, he is a fisherman”.
My companion could not see why—but then he was not a fisherman himself.
I had noticed a lot of little tufts of cloth sticking up on the left cuff of his coat. A good many fis hermen, when they take their flies off the line, stick them into their cap to dry; others stick them into their sleeve. When dry they pull them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.
TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT No. 7 - TOMMY THE PATHFINDER
“Which way to turn me I cannot divine. Of friend or of foeman I can’t see a sign.”
Remember how Sherlock Holmes met a stranger and noticed that he was looking fairly well-to-do, in new clothes with a mourning band on his sleeve, with a soldierly bearing, and a sailor’s way of walking, sunburnt, with tattoo marks on his hand. What should you have supposed that man to be? Well, Sherlock Holmes guessed, correctly, that he had lately retired from the Royal Marines as a Sergeant, his wife had died, and he had some small children at home.
Signs Round a Dead Body
It may happen to some of you that one day you will be the first to find the body of a dead man. In such a case the smallest signs that are to be seen on and near the body must be examined and noted down, before the body is moved or the ground disturbed and trampled down. Besides noticing the exact position of the body (which should, if possible, be photographed exactly as found) the ground all round should be very carefully examined—without treading on it yourself more than is absolutely necessary, for fear of spoiling existing tracks. If you can also draw a little map of how the body lay and where the signs round it were, it might be of value.
I know of two cases where bodies have been found which were at first supposed to be of people who had hanged themselves. But close examination of the ground round them—in one case some torn twigs and trampled grass, and in the other a crumpled carpet—showed that murder had been committed, and that the bodies had been hanged after death to make it appear as though the people had committed suicide.
Finger-Prints
Finger-prints are some of the first things the police look for on all likely articles. If they do not correspond to those of the murdered man they may be those of his murderer, who could then be identified by comparing the impression with his fingers.
There was the case of a learned old gentleman who was found dead in his bedroom with a wound in his forehead and another in his left temple.
Very often after a murder, the murderer, with his hands bloody from the deed and running away, may catch hold of the door, or a jug of water to wash his hands.
In the present case a newspaper lying on the table had the marks of three blood-stained fingers on it. The son of the dead man was suspected and was arrested by the police. But careful examination of the room and the prints of the finger-marks showed that the old gentleman had become ill in the night. He had got out of bed to get some medicine, but near the table a new spasm seized him and he fell, striking his head violently against the corner of the table, and made the wound on his temple, which just fitted the corner. In trying to get up he had caught hold of the table and had made the bloody finger-marks on the newspaper lying on it. Then he had fallen again, cutting his head a second time on the foot of the bed.
The finger-prints were compared with the dead man’s fingers and were found to be exactly the same. Well, you don’t find two men in 64,000,000,000,000 with the same pattern on the skin of their fingers. So it was evident there had been no murder, and the dead man’s son was released as innocent.
Other Marks
In a Russian city a banker was found murdered. Near the body was discovered a cigar-holder with an amber mouthpiece. This mouthpiece was of peculiar shape and could only be held in the mouth in one position, and it had two teeth marks in it. The marks showed that the two teeth were of different lengths.
The teeth of the murdered man were quite regular, so the cigar-holder was evidently not his. But his nephew had teeth which corresponded to the marks on the mouthpiece. He was arrested, and then further proof came up and
