Does He Measure Up
An idea floated around Europe in the 1800s.
Bandit's Roost
Bandit's Roost is the Internet's most intriguing resource for authors of nineteenth-century crime fiction.
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Evolution and the Criminal
The Nineteenth-Century Obsession with Atavism
North America's First Forensic Scientists
“Not Sherlock Holmes.
North America’s First Forensic Laboratories
The first public forensic laboratory in the world was founded in Lyon, France, in 1910 by Edmund Locard (a giant in the history of forensics) in the attic of the Lyon police station.
Galvanism and the Criminal Body
“I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet...
Humans, Animals, and the Origins of Forensic Hair Examination
“If a hair submitted for examination be not human, from what animal has it been derived?” Charles Meymott Tidy, Legal Medicine, 1892
The State of Forensics in the 1800s
What we consider standard in modern investigations—fingerprints, ballistics, blood evidence, toxicology, hair and fiber—were in their infancy.
Archives
Before there was Bandit’s Roost on Substack, there was a monthly newsletter (by the same name).
Nineteenth-century Toxicology
“Fear nothing; your crime will go unpunished.
Anthropometry
An Obsession with Identity
If the police can’t help you...
March 2023
If a picture is worth a thousand words…
February 2023
When the notes don’t seem to work...
January 2023
Checking the change in your pockets...
December 2022
The language printed on the body...
November 2022
Them damn’d murderin’ anatomists...
October 2022
Bringing out the Dead...
September 2022
The Paris of the Sun King...
August 2022
The Office of the Coroner...
July 2022
Mens rea...
June 2022