3-074-620 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Criminal Museum at the Convict Office, Metropolitan Police Department, Scotland-Yard, 1883. 'Pistol with which Oxford shot at Her Majesty, 1840; Prof. Zandevestd's Fortune Telling Machine; The property or a distinguished prisoner...a curious museum, which is only open to magistrates and others engaged in the administration of the criminal law...[Here are] a grim-looking collection of historical deadly weapons, house-breaking implements, handcuffs, plaster casts of the heads of criminals, and various articles which have been used in the perpetration of crime. Revolvers and other pistols are very numerous, [including] that with which Edward Oxford shot at the Queen, and others which have been handled by insane pretenders to regicide...; knives, razors, and daggers, "life-preservers," clubs, and hammers, with which mortal blows have been struck...The instruments and apparatus of burglary may profitably be examined with a view to prevention; the "jemmies" or crowbars, the picklocks and false keys, and Charles Peace's folding ladder, by which he could ascend to a first-floor window. Boxes and canisters which once held an exploding mixture, with the apparatus of ignition, for murderous or destructive purposes, are worthy of notice'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.