Musical accompaniment: Superstition by Blanche.

 

 

I found this unusual set of pictures from London in Archive.org.  It was labeled “9 Photographic Postcards Murderer Or Victim Front 1910.”

The metadata included the tag “phrenology” so I imagine these pictures were used to train law enforcement to differentiate between criminals and victims by the shape of their heads.  It’s too bad the light glare prevents us from seeing the man on the bottom left very clearly.  If you’d like to take a guess which ones are murderers and which ones are victims, write your answers down now, because I’ll show you the answers later in this post.

According to Encyclopedia Brittanica,  “Phrenology is the study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties and traits of character… Phrenology enjoyed great popular appeal well into the 20th century but has been wholly discredited by scientific research.”

I’ll take issue with the “wholly discredited” pronouncement, if phrenology is inclusive of facial features. There is something to it. It takes some knowledge and a lot of intuition but some people are very good at identifying a stranger’s personality and propensities just by examining their features.  I refer you to our friend Taylor Northcutt’s YouTube channel, Prosopa Insights.

Would you like to see who is who?

I’m sorry to report I failed the phrenology test. I got 7 out of 9 correct, or 78%. I identified all the criminals correctly but misidentified two victims. My overly-suspicious take would have doomed me with the elite phrenology squad at Scotland Yard. I need to find a new career where my dubious phrenology skills are appreciated.