1 Central Law Journal 159
April 2, 1874
The Legal Uses of Photography.
Examples are constantly occurring of the uses in legal investigations of the art of photographing. We noted in a previous number (ante, p. 121), that Judge BLATCHFORD has decided that photographs of papers will not be admitted in evidence where the genuineness of the handwriting is in dispute, and where the originals can be procured. The London Times, in its graphic account of the close of the Tichborne trial, thus alludes to this subject:
It is impossible to avoid noticing, at the conclusion of the case, the important service rendered to the cause of justice by the art of photography. The principal documents in the case, the pocket-book of the defendant, his letters and those of Roger Tichborne, were photographed by the Stereoscopic Company, under the auspices of Mr. Nottage, their manager, and the fac similes thus produced were of immense use in facilitating the comparison of handwriting, to which the Lord Chief Justice attached much importance as one of the great tests of identity. There probably never was a case in which the application of the invention was of greater service."We may add our conviction that the use of photography in legal investigations is destined, at no distant day, to form an important chapter in the law of evidence.