50 years ago

Tragic Safari by Albert Mahuzier—This book is an account of a trip to French Equatorial Africa to make colour films of wild animals, especially at night by flashlight. All the plans went wrong, and the white hunter was mauled by a lion and bled to death for want of proper 'first aid'. The author has unusual ideas about filming animals in the field: he apparently aims at getting his pictures after the white hunter has mortally wounded the victims, or after he has caught a leopard in a 'panther trap', an enormous gin anchored to a log of wood… The value of the book may be judged by the caption beneath a photograph of the body of a warthog; it informs the reader that the picture shows a “dead rhinoceros”.

The blurb on the jacket says “It is Mahuzier himself who gives us 'the loveliest girl of Maripanda', her beater raised in one hand, while the fingers of the other caress the taut tom-tom skin to produce the intoxicating double-rhythm”. Reference to the picture, however, shows “the belle of Maribanda” pounding mealies in a wooden mortar with her free hand on the edge to prevent the contents spilling as she reduces them to meal. Further comment is needless.

From Nature 25 August 1956

100 years ago

A striking proof of the value of the finger-print method of identifying criminals is to be found in the recently issued report of the Commissioner of the City Police. During the past year 1,028 persons were arrested for offences under the Prevention of Crimes Act, such as being found in enclosed premises or in other circumstances suggestive of felonious intent. Of these individuals 562 were not recognised at the time of the arrest, but on their finger-prints being taken and compared with the Scotland Yard registers it was ascertained that 265 of them were old offenders.

From Nature 23 August 1906