SYSTEMS OF IDENTIFICATION
Photography--Anthropometry--Finger-prints and their Uses.
The discovery of photography was welcomed by the police authorities of
civilised countries as affording a certain means of registering criminals
for subsequent identification. But the promise that the photographic
method held out was not fulfilled; for with the accumulation of
photographs there was a corresponding increase in the difficulties and
uncertainties attending the identification of the originals.
Apart from difficulties due to the effects of the changes produced by time
or by intentional disguise, it was no light task to search through many
thousands of prints to see whether a particular individual had been
photographed ten years previously, and physical weariness of the searchers
must frequently have set an obstacle in the way of the identification.
On the other hand, it is a matter of common knowledge, that two
photographs of the same person, taken under different conditions of
lighting or with different lenses may readily be thought to be the
portraits of two distinct individuals, or that a photograph of one person
may unduly emphasise a momentary expression differing from the normal one,
with the result that the portrait may be mistaken for a likeness of
someone else. These considerations fully explain the numerous instances of
mistaken identification, some of which are cited below, where the police
based their recognition upon old photographs.
Prior to the introduction of the anthropometric and finger-print systems,
the insufficiency of the photographic records kept by the police in this
country for the identification of criminals was repeatedly proved. The
advisability of introducing the French anthropometric system into England
was raised in Parliament on several occasions in 1887 and 1888, but each
time the Home Secretary defended the system of photographic registration
as being sufficiently satisfactory, while he considered it doubtful
whether the French system would be any better.
A sufficient answer to this official defence was afforded by the number of
cases of mistaken recognition from photographs, that shortly afterwards
were brought before both Houses of Parliament.
In 1888, the Lord Chief Justice (Coleridge) mentioned an instance that had
come under his notice at the Gloucester Assizes. After a man had been
convicted of some small offence police evidence was given that the
prisoner was a man who had been convicted before. This was subsequently
proved to be a mistake.
Again, in July, 1889, after the conviction of a prisoner, evidence was
given by a warder that the man was one who had been sentenced to seven
years' penal servitude and seven years' police supervision.
It was found afterwards, however, that this man had been previously
convicted in 1882 and therefore could not possibly have been the person
alleged. The remarkable feature about this mistake was that both men had
been under the police control at the same time.
The failure to identify a criminal from the photographic records had a
tragic result in 1888, when a man named Jackson was given a light sentence
as a first offender. Although he had been previously convicted of numerous
crimes, and was at the time "wanted" by the police for housebreaking and
other offences he escaped recognition, and was able to take advantage of
the lenient treatment he received by murdering a warder in the prison at
Manchester.
In 1894 a Special Committee was appointed to examine and report upon the
different systems of identifying criminals, and they recommended that the
anthropometric system was the most satisfactory for preliminary
classification, but that for further grouping the finger-print method gave
the best results. Accordingly a system including both methods was adopted
in this country and was in use until 1901, when, as is mentioned below,
the present system of finger-print identification was introduced.
The success of M. Bertillon's system in France speedily led to its
adoption in other countries. Early in 1892 it was introduced into India,
and within six years upwards of a quarter of a million of classified cards
had been collected.
The chief difficulty was found to be in the classification of the
measurements for reference, and a committee was accordingly appointed by
the Indian Government to report upon the system. Their report stated that
the finger-print method was preferable to the anthropometric system in
simplicity, rapidity and certainty.
Since that time (June, 1897) the finger-print method has been in use in
India for the identification of criminals.
The system of identification by bodily measurements, which has now come to
be known as _bertillonage_, was first introduced as a method of police
registration in Paris in 1882. During the first year of its employment it
detected forty-nine criminals giving false names, while in the following
year the number rose to 241.
In 1889 M. Bertillon stated that there had not been a single case of
mistaken identity since the system had been introduced, and that in the
previous year 31,849 prisoners had been measured in Paris, 615 of whom
were in this way recognised as former convicts, while fourteen were
subsequently recognised in prison. Of the latter, ten had never previously
been examined, so that the failures were only four in 32,000, or one in
8,000.
The system, as described by M. Bertillon himself in a pamphlet on _The
Identification of the Criminal Classes_, consists in taking the
measurements of the body structure of each individual. Although such
measurements might be indefinitely extended, the number is usually
restricted to twelve, including the height, length and width of the head,
length of the middle finger, of the foot, etc.
These measurements are rapidly taken with standard instruments by a
special staff, and are recorded upon a card upon which are pasted full
face and profile photographs of the prisoner.
The data obtained enable the photographs to be classified into different
groups of short, medium, and tall men, and these, again, may be
subdivided into groups of short, medium, and long heads, while further
subdivisions are afforded by the width of the head, width of the arms
outstretched at an angle of the body and so on. The colour of the eyes
affords the means for a further subdivision, while special birthmarks or
peculiarities differentiate the individuals still further.
In this way alone, M. Bertillon claims that 100,000 persons can be
classified into groups of ten each, the portraits in which would offer no
difficulty in examination.
M. Bertillon undoubtedly puts the position too favourably here, in
assuming division into equal groups; for out of his hypothetical 100,000
individuals, seventy-five per cent. might conceivably be tall men, and
seventy-five per cent. of these, again have long heads, so that the final
groups would in some cases have no representatives, while in the other
groups there might be 1,000 individuals.
In recording the colour of the eyes a special table is used, the scale of
which is based upon the intensity of the pigment of the iris. A number
corresponding to one of the following groups is then assigned:--(1) Iris,
azure blue, with areola pale but free from yellow pigment; (2) Iris blue
or slate, with light yellow areola; (3) Same shade, with larger areola
approaching orange; (4) Iris, greenish reflection; hazel areola; (5) Same
shade with dark hazel areola; (6) Hazel distributed over surface of iris;
(7) Eye entirely hazel.
When first the system was introduced into Paris it was a common practice
for the old offenders to change their names and try to escape
identification, but, according to M. Bertillon, after a few years this was
only done by those who had been away from Paris for a long period, or had
some very special reason for attempting to slip through the examination
unrecognised.
A similar method is employed in the United States Army for recognising
deserters. Each man on joining is measured, and an outline figure card
showing the measurements of the front and back surfaces, which are divided
into areas by means of dotted lines, is filed in the Medical Department of
the War Office. When a man deserts or is dismissed his card is placed in a
separate file, and the new cards of recruits are compared with those in
this particular file.
A special register, ruled into columns corresponding to the areas on the
cards, and giving the measurements and any peculiarities such as scars,
tattoo marks, etc., is used to facilitate the search, and when, on
reference to this, there appears to be a probability of a recruit being
identical with a deserter, the original card is used for the comparison.
During the first five months after the system was instituted (1891)
sixty-two men were suspected of concealing their identity, and in
sixty-one of these cases the suspicion was justified and the identity
acknowledged.
A drawback of the Bertillon system of identification is that much depends
upon the accuracy of the person who takes the measurements, and that,
therefore, a permissible error must be admitted. In the United States
Army an error of one inch in either direction is allowed, for the recorded
height. In addition to this, some degree of natural variation will take
place in the course of years, and due allowance must also be made for this
influence upon the measurements.
Striking as has been the success of M. Bertillon's system of
anthropometrical measurements as a means of identification, it has been
altogether surpassed in certainty by the methods of recording the
impressions of the fingers. From time to time in the past use has been
made of a finger or thumb impression as a seal or to give a personal mark
of authenticity to a document. One of the earliest examples extant of the
use of the manual seal is to be seen on one of the Assyrian clay tablets
in the British Museum.
This is imprinted in cuneiform characters, and contains a notice of the
sale of a field, which concludes with the imprint of a finger nail, and
the statement that this had been made by the seller of the field as his
nail mark.
Similar imprints of nails are to be seen upon Chinese coins, as has been
pointed out by Sir Francis Galton, and a tradition has it that they were
first put there as a compliment to an early Chinese Empress who had
accidentally pressed her finger nail into the wax model of a coin that had
been submitted for her approval. The ancient Egyptians caused criminals to
seal their confessions with finger nails.
There are also numerous instances in which impressions of finger-tips are
found upon documents, but these do not seem to have been put there with
any idea of identification, but rather to have been of the nature of a
ceremonial observance comparable with the legal survival of putting a
finger upon the seal of a document, and delivering it as "my act and
deed."
The first attempt by Europeans to make use of the characteristic ridges of
the fingers to record the identity of individuals appears to have been
that of Sir William Herschel, who introduced a method officially into
Bengal.
His system arose out of the difficulty of checking forgeries by the
natives in India, and his having made two of them record their finger
impressions upon contracts, so that he might be able to frighten them
should they subsequently deny their signatures.
This was in 1858, and the device proved so unexpectedly successful that
for several years Sir William Herschel made a study of the use of
finger-prints in identification, and finally found them so satisfactory
that, in 1877, he gave instructions for their systematic use in the
Hooghly.
A description of the advantages that were thereby reaped is given in
_Nature_ (1880, Vol. XXIII, 23). The frequent attempts previously made by
the natives to deny their own signatures were completely frustrated, and
documents thus stamped with a finger-print could not afterwards be
disputed.
The use of finger-prints was also invaluable as a means of preventing the
fraudulent claims of pensions by persons who were not entitled to them.
Then as the system was found to work so well in these cases it was
introduced into the prisons, each new-comer being made to sign the
register with the finger. The official visitors had thus the means of
satisfying themselves as to the identity of each inmate of the prison.
Although Sir William Herschel tried to obtain permission to extend the use
of the finger-print identification still further, his attempts did not
meet with success.
About the same time that Sir William Herschel published the account of his
system a suggestion was made to register the Chinese in California by a
similar process, but nothing was done in the matter.
There have also been occasional applications of the method to prevent
forgery, as, for instance, in 1882 in the payment orders signed by Mr.
Thomson of the American Geological Survey, upon which, as a safeguard, he
made the imprint of his own finger.
It is to Sir William Herschel, however, that the credit is due of having
established the first modern systematic process of registration of
individuals by means of finger impressions.
According to Dr. Faulds, the Chinese from time immemorial have caused
their convicted criminals to make impressions of their finger-tips as a
record, but he gives no details of their system of classifying the prints,
if such exists.
The curious markings upon which are based these systems of identification
are not confined to the human race, but are also shown by monkeys and to a
less pronounced extent by other animals.
The pattern upon the surface of the skin upon the palms of the hand and
soles of the feet is formed by the arrangement of what is known as the
papillary ridges. It is readily recorded by carefully coating the
finger-tips with a fine layer of printing or ordinary ink and pressing
them upon paper so as to leave an imprint of the markings upon the finger.
The uses of these ridges is to assist the delicacy of touch, and also to
excrete perspiration through the minute pores with which they are covered.
The effect of rough work upon the ridges is to increase their height, and
eventually they may become covered up by the horny accretions known as
callosities. On the other hand, the ridges upon the palms of people who do
very little manual labour are much less apparent, and when the skin is
thin are very low. Hence, in the hands of bedridden invalids there is only
a slight development of the ridges.
Several circumstances may lead to a temporary obliteration of the ridges,
such as, for instance, the constant puncturing of the skin by the head of
a needle in sewing, and the imprint of the forefinger of a tailor will
therefore often present a very characteristic mottled appearance.
More permanent alterations are produced by cuts or by wounds that have
healed and left a white scar. An instance of this is seen in D in the
plate (p. 66), which represents a print of the left-hand thumb of the
present writer. Running across the ridges, and breaking their continuity
is a line which marks the place where twenty years ago the slip of a knife
nearly severed a piece from the thumb. The effect of this cut has been to
add a fresh feature of identity to those furnished by the original ridges,
without interfering with the identification of the latter.
In the case of jagged cuts or of scars formed in the healing of an ulcer
the ridges may be so distorted as to be practically indistinguishable in
that place, or they may even be entirely obliterated. Old age has also an
obliterating effect upon the ridges, so much so that the finger-prints of
an old man frequently exhibit transverse white markings, indicating signs
of the surface disintegration of the skin.
A most important point in the application of finger-prints to the
identification of the individual is the persistence of the main details
throughout life, since otherwise much of the value of the method would be
lost. The observations made by Sir William Herschel in India showed that
after the lapse of twenty years there was so little change in the
finger-prints of a large number of persons that they could still readily
be identified in this way.
Sir Francis Galton has also proved the persistence of the general
peculiarities in the prints for periods of over thirty years. He points
out that an exact correspondence as to the minutiæ is not always to be
expected, since what appears to be a ridge in one print may be really the
result of imperfect printing of an enclosure. Apart from possible
imperfections in the method, there is also a possibility of variation due
to the effect of age rendering the ridges less continuous.
In one of the examples given by him finger-prints were taken of a child of
two and a half in 1877, and again thirteen years later. Between two of the
prints there were forty-two points of resemblance and only one point of
difference. This was a small forked ridge which appeared in the print of
the baby, but had been filled up in the print from the boy. This instance
is mentioned as unique, for in every other case examined by Sir Francis
Galton, comparing prints of the boy with the man, and the man with the old
man there was perfect correspondence between the selected points. He
therefore concludes that "we are justified in inferring that between birth
and death there is absolutely no change in, say, 699 out of 700 of the
numerous characteristics in the markings of the same person such as can be
impressed by them whenever it is desirable to do so."
An interesting series of photographs was recently exhibited by the Chief
Commissioner of the Police. These included the portraits of three men who
so closely resembled one another that they would readily have been
mistaken for one another in photographs. Their finger-prints, however,
were quite distinct.
So persistent are these distinctive markings that they last as long as the
skin itself, and may be clearly seen upon the fingers of Egyptian mummies.
However much the general dimensions of the pattern of the prints may be
changed by the advance of age or the effect of disease, the number of the
pattern will still remain. To use the apt illustration of Sir Francis
Galton, the changes to be expected are comparable with those seen in a
piece of lace. The material may be stretched in one or the other direction
or shrunken to half its former dimensions, but the individual loops and
knots may be identified with those in the original fabric.
As is the case with all the other measurements of the human body
alterations will occur in the size of the markings; for the pattern as a
whole increases with the growth of the finger, but this growth does not
affect the arrangement of the loops and ridges that make up the markings
upon the skin.
In no other way than a study of the finger-prints is it possible to find
over a thousand points of comparison upon which to establish the identity
of an individual.
In estimating the value of finger-prints as evidence of identity, Sir
Francis Galton found that out of 1,000 thumb-prints the collection could
be classified into 100 groups each containing prints with a more or less
close resemblance to one another. He further found that on the average it
was impossible to put great reliance upon the general resemblance between
two given prints as a proof that they were produced by the same finger,
though obvious difference was a proof that they were produced by different
fingers.
But on studying the minutiæ of the patterns, and calculating the chances
that the print of a single finger should agree in all particulars with the
print of another finger, he concluded that it was as one is to about
sixty-four millions; so that the chance of two persons giving similar
prints from a single finger would be less than one in four. If the
comparisons were extended to two fingers the improbability of agreement in
all details would be squared, "reaching a figure altogether beyond the
range of imagination."
The general conclusion drawn from these numerical results was that even
after making all allowance for ambiguities and for possible alterations
caused by accident or disease, a complete, or nearly complete, agreement
between two prints of one finger and infinitely more so between two or
more fingers, afforded evidence, which did not stand in need of
corroboration, that the prints were derived from the fingers of one and
the same person.
In finger-prints, therefore, we have the only means of proving the
identity of an individual beyond all question.
In the prehistoric flint-holes at Brandon, in Suffolk, there was found
some years ago a pick made from the horn of an extinct elk. This had been
used by some flint-digger of the stone age to hew out of the chalk the
rough flints which were subsequently made into scrapers and arrow-heads.
Upon the dark handle of this instrument were the finger-prints in chalk of
the workman, who, thousands of years ago, flung it down for the last time.
It is strange to reflect that in these perishable impressions he had left
a far more permanent record of his identity than he could have done by any
other conceivable means.
A striking feature in the scriptural account of the death of Jezebel is
that her body was devoured by the dogs, which left nothing but the skull
and the palms of her hands and soles of her feet, so that no man might say
"this is Jezebel." Yet, as Sir Francis Galton pointed out, it was upon
those parts that the dogs had spared that Jezebel carried the only certain
proofs of her identity.
The question of heredity in finger-prints is not only interesting but
might also conceivably be a point of some importance in a criminal trial.
Dr. Faulds concluded that heredity played a great part in the particular
form of the markings. "The dominancy of heredity in these patterns is
sometimes very striking. I have found unique patterns in a parent repeated
with marvellous accuracy in his child."
He suggested that there might thus possibly be an Orton type of pattern
and a Tichborne type, to one or other of which experts might have referred
the finger impressions of the claimant in the celebrated case.
While there is unquestionably a general tendency for a particular type of
finger-prints to be inherited just as any other bodily peculiarities are
liable to be passed on from the parents to the children, there is by no
means that definite relationship that Dr. Faulds hoped to establish.
The observations made by Sir Francis Galton upon this point, and the
mathematical considerations based upon them render it impossible to doubt
that the average resemblance between the finger-prints of two brothers or
of a brother and sister is greater than in those of two persons selected
at random.
The general similarities in the finger-prints in rows A and B in the plate
(p. 66), which are those of two sisters, are obvious.
The case of twins is particularly interesting, for it is well known that
when of the same sex they frequently show remarkable physical and mental
resemblances or the reverse. Here, too, it was found by Sir Francis
Galton that the finger-prints exhibited a strong tendency to similarity,
although in no case were the resemblances so close that the prints of one
twin could be mistaken for those of the other.
For instance, the resemblance may lie in the pattern being made up of
loops or whorls in both, but the smaller details, such as the number of
the ridges or their minute peculiarities (_e.g._, dividing and then
reuniting to form a small island), will not be shared.
The results of other observations tended to show that the influence of the
mother upon the type of finger-print is more pronounced than that of the
father.
The existence of racial peculiarities in finger-prints, which Dr. Faulds
believed that he had discovered in the case of the Japanese, has not been
borne out by the experience of others.
The observations of Sir Francis Galton upon numbers of prints
representative of pure English, pure Welsh, Hebrew and Negro proved
unquestionably that there was no pattern peculiar to any of these races.
The only suggestion of any difference was that the width of the ridges
appeared to be more uniform and their direction more parallel in the
finger-prints of negroes than in those of the other races.
The same conclusions were drawn from the observations upon the
finger-prints of different classes of individuals, those of art students
being compared with those of science students, of field labourers, and of
idiots. In each instance it was possible to match the type of patterns in
one class with those in any of the others. The patterns of the
finger-impression of a statesman, for instance, could be matched by those
of an idiot.
The first attempt to classify the various patterns formed by the ridges
was that of Purkenje, a doctor of medicine who, in 1823, delivered a
thesis upon the subject at the University of Breslau.
He concluded that all the varieties of curves might be grouped under nine
main heads or standard types, which he described as follows:--
(1) _Transverse curves._ (2) _Central longitudinal stria._ (3) _Oblique
stria._ (4) _Oblique sinus._ (5) _Almond._ (6) _Spiral._ (7) _Ellipse or
elliptical whorl._ (8) _Circle_ or _circular whorl_; and (9) _Double
whorl_.
The differences between these different types are best shown by diagrams,
and the accompanying figure, reproduced by permission of Sir Francis
Galton, represents the cores of the nine standard patterns.
This classification, resting as it does upon merely superficial
appearances, does not afford a certain means of separating the types,
since factors, such as the depth of printing, the size of the patterns,
and the prominence of secondary details may have an undue influence in the
placing of a particular print in one or the other group.
After numerous futile attempts to make use of Purkenje's system, Sir
Francis Galton discarded it in favour of a system in which the triangular
space or spaces found in the majority of finger impressions was made the
basis of classification. Starting upon the two divergent ridges from these
spaces an outline was then drawn as far as it could be traced, the course
of each ridge being followed with minute fidelity. In this way a series
of sharply-defined outline figures were obtained.
[Illustration: THE STANDARD PATTERNS OF PURKENJE]
[Illustration: CORES OF THE ABOVE PATTERNS
1. Transverse flexures
2. Central longitudinal stria
3. Oblique stria
4. Oblique sinus
5. Almond
6. Spiral
7. Ellipse
8. Circle
9. Double Whorl
_By kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd._]
The various patterns may, as a rule, be classified into the three main
groups of arches, loops and whorls, while some of the transitional forms
may be grouped under more than one of these heads. Other patterns, again,
which are of rare occurrence, are not suitable for inclusion in any of the
three groups.
A system of indexing based upon this method of classification was also
devised in which letters represented the varieties of patterns. Thus _a,
a, a_ indicate that the outline upon the fore, middle and ring fingers
consists of arches, while _a, w, l_ indicate an arch upon the forefinger,
a whorl upon the middle finger, and a loop upon the ring finger. The
letters _i_ and _o_ are also used, the former indicating a loop with an
inward slope and the latter one with an outer slope upon the forefinger.
The possible variations in such a classification of the impressions of the
three fingers of the right hand cannot exceed thirty-six, and a thousand
prints may therefore be indexed into one of these thirty-six groups.
Subdivisions of these main groups may then be based upon the
characteristics of the prints of the fingers of the other hand and of the
thumbs, while differences in the cores of the patterns afford a means of
forming smaller divisions of the loop patterns.
From observations of the 5,000 prints of 500 individuals Sir Francis
Galton found that arches were present in 6·5 per cent.; loops in 67·5 per
cent.; and whorls in 26·0 per cent. Each digit and hand, however, had its
own peculiarities, and the variations in the percentage of arches upon
different digits ranged from 1 to 17; that of the loops from 53 to 90; and
that of the whorls from 13 to 45.
Loops occurred with most frequency upon the little finger and then upon
the middle finger, while whorls were rarely met with upon these fingers,
but were of common occurrence upon the thumb and ring finger.
The classification employed by the English police was devised by Sir
Edward Henry and is a modification of that of Sir Francis Galton, from
which it differs in making use of four types instead of three. The
impressions are grouped into arches, loops, whorls, and composites. The
last group includes patterns made up of combinations of the other three,
or those which might be classified either as loops or whorls. There are
also numerous subdivisions of the group into patterns with characteristics
in common such as "central pockets" and "accidentals," and further
differentiation is effected by counting the number of ridges between two
fixed points in the patterns.
Examples of these four groups are shown in the plate facing p. 66.
Dr. Faulds, who, while at a hospital in Japan, made an exhaustive study of
the finger impressions of the Japanese, appears to have been the first to
suggest the possibility of tracing a criminal by the imprints of his
fingers upon external objects.
He mentions two instances where the method had afforded valuable
evidence, and these are worth recording as early examples of the use of
the system in detective work.
[Illustration: TYPES OF FINGER PRINTS]
In one case some rectified spirit had been drunk, and the greasy marks of
the fingers upon the bottle plainly showed who was the culprit, for their
pattern was identical with that of an imprint in Dr. Fauld's collection.
On another occasion someone had been suspected of breaking into a house,
but the sooty imprints of fingers left upon the wall proved beyond all
doubt that this was not the person.
The finger-print system of identification was adopted by the police in
this country in July, 1901, and the numbers of identifications made since
then by the police at Scotland Yard are very remarkable. Up to the end of
1901 there were 93 identifications, which rose in the succeeding years to
the following numbers: In 1902, 1,722; in 1903, 3,642; in 1904, 5,155; in
1905, 6,186; in 1906, 6,776; in 1907, 7,701; in 1908, 9,440; and in 1909,
9,960.
There have been some very striking instances of the detection of criminals
by means of their finger-prints, a few of which may be quoted by way of
illustration.
On March 20, 1908, a man named Chadwick was tried at the Birmingham
Assizes on the charge of housebreaking and stealing at Edgbaston. He had
left finger-prints upon a champagne bottle, and when these were made clear
by the application of powdered blacklead they were found to correspond
exactly with the finger-prints of the prisoner. Inspector Collins, in
giving evidence on this point, stated that there were a million and a
quarter classified finger-prints at Scotland Yard, and that these could
all be distinguished from one another. He pointed out that there were
twelve ridges which were characteristic and identical in the two prints.
Similar identifications in cases of burglary have been made by means of
the impressions left on a wax candle, on windows, on paper, such as a
cheque, or on the metallic surface of a cash-box, etc.
On March 11th of last year, a labourer named George Lane was put on trial
at Birmingham on the charge of breaking into the house of a bootmaker and
stealing several articles. He had left a thumb-nail mark upon a glove-box,
and evidence was given as to the identity of this with his own
thumb-print. For the defence it was urged that he was in Nottingham at the
time, and that he could call as a witness "a tall dark man working in a
bar." The judge offered to postpone the trial for the attendance of this
witness, but warned the prisoner that if his statement were found to be
untrue he would be prosecuted for perjury in addition to the present
charge. The prisoner thereupon said he preferred the trial not to be
delayed. He was found guilty, and after evidence of previous convictions
had been given he was sentenced to three years' penal servitude.
In April of last year an equally convincing proof was offered of the value
of the finger-print system, when it proved the identity of a dead man. The
scattered remains of this man were found upon the railway line near
Slough, and there was no clue whatever as to his identity. Upon the
off-chance of the victim's finger-prints being known at Scotland Yard
impressions from his fingers were taken by the local superintendent of the
police and forwarded to headquarters, where on reference to the index of
finger-prints they were immediately recognised. They were those of a man
twenty-four years of age, who had been living at Deal.
This was noteworthy as being the first occasion upon which the method has
been used to discover the identity of anyone after death.
A striking proof of the value of finger-prints in the identification of an
individual by the French police was afforded last year in Paris.
A man named Lemarque, one of a notorious gang of thieves, known as
Chaffeurs de la Drome, had escaped when three of his companions had been
captured. They were tried at the Assize Court of the Drome Department in
July, 1909, on the charges of murder and robbery and were condemned to
death, while Lemarque was sentenced by default.
All attempts to discover the missing man proved fruitless, until in March,
1910, a man was arrested for theft at Nîmes. He gave the name of Charles
Garnier, but the police suspecting that the description he gave of himself
was false, took impressions of his finger-prints, and forwarded these,
together with the man's description and photograph, to the
Anthropometrical Department of the Prefecture of Police in Paris. The
finger-prints were immediately recognised by M. Bertillon, and Charles
Garnier was identified as Lemarque, the man who had so long been
"wanted."