By combining the Bertillon measurements with the finger-print system
the police department has woven a network of identification around
the criminal which makes it practically an impossibility for him ever
to disguise himself should he at any future time fall into the hands
of the officials of the law.
[Illustration: (Fingerprint form)]
The finger print method was discovered about forty years ago by Sir
William Herschell, then an English official in India. Sir Francis
Galton, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was the first to systematize
it, and the first to establish the fact that the papillary ridges of
the fingers did not change through life. This was nearly twenty years
ago. Sir Francis Galton made the calculation that the chance of any
two sets of finger prints being the same is one in 16,400,000,000, and
as an article from which the writer quotes states, "there are only
1,600,000,000 people in the world," its population would have to be
increased ten times before two people were identical and means that a
finger print as a mark of identification is practically infallible.