USE OF FINGERPRINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

USE OF FINGERPRINTS.

VARIOUS IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES. ALIKE FOR INNOCENT AND GUILTY. WHAT AMERICA IS DOING.

Ever since the appearance of "Pudd'nhead Wikon," Mark Twain's famous etory of the mixed babies, fingerprints eeem to be associated in the public mind exclusively with crime. In that story, the rustic jury laughed at the bright young lawyer who had been experimenting with the then new-fangled notion of fingerprints, only to be thoroughly discomfited when lie proved l>y this strange medium that the babies actually had been mixed, wrote the Commissioner of Correction recently in the "New York Times,"

It is quite possible that, because fingerprints in "Pudd'nhead Wileon" were associated with dark deeds and Courts of law, the two became eo associated in the public mind. At any rate, whatever caused it, the fact remains that they are eo associated, and no amount of education seems to change this attitude. But fingerprinting has done a great deal of good in the world and might do much more. Value of Fingerprinting.

s In the Department of Correction, for instance, we have identified innumerable persons found dead in the city streets or in the waters surrounding it through, fingerprinte taken when they had been in one of our institutions. If the city had copies of the fingerprinte of all its citizens, many hundreds of others so found could have been identified, with consequent elimination of much anxiety and doubt. In eome cases we have assisted needy persons to collect insurance by proving, through fingerprints, the death of the insured. Through our fingerprint bureau we have made many other identifications having nothing to do with the oomanieeion of crime, which have been of inestimable benefit to relatives and friends of missing and deceased persons.

Fingerprints are used widely in other than criminal fields. The system is employed by the Federal Civil Service Commission, the immigration authorities, the Coast Guard, the army, navy and marine services. It is being used by banks to identify illiterates. Anyone can make a cross, but whether a man or woman is illiterate or not, his fingerprinte are unlike those of anyone else.

In the Postal Savings Department all depositors are fingerprinted to prevent withdrawals by unauthorised persons. The system ia also used in connection with foreign drafts to prevent withdrawals by forged papers. With the fingerprints, forwarded to the point where the funds are to be withdrawn, there is no possibility of any unauthorised person receiving the money. In all these instances fingerprints serve a good purpose, not in detecting dishonest persons, which is purely incidental, but in the protection of property.

In the New York City Civil Service Commission and in some other Civil Service organisations throughout) the country it haa been found absolutely necessary to finger print those taking examinations. It was found on more than one occasion that one person would take the physical examination, another the mental, and a third would appear for appointment, the last having paid the two others for their services. There was a certain amount of humour in a big husky man appearing for the physical examination, a little bespectacled scholar for the mental, and just an ordinary everyday person to get the frnite of their labour.

The humour of it did not exactly appeal to the various commissions when it was found that the person who received the appointment, after having passed an extraordinary mental examination, had difficulty spelling "cat." Or when a man becoming a fireman, after having shown extraordinary proficiency in olimbing scaling ladders and jumping into nets, explained to the captain of -hie company that it made him dizzy to look down from a two-etorey height. So the finger print system was installed, and thai'kind of dishonesty was eliminated. Extension of the System.

Beeently the use of finger prints has been extended to those desiring licenses ae chauffeurs, or to carry pistols, or for other permits of the kind. In this way, and in this way only, can undesirable persons be prevented from receiving licenses which would permit them to carry firearms or engage in work which might be decidedly detrimental to the public at large.

In many other ways the use of finger printe has gradually been extended to cover activities having either little or no relationship at all to crime. Experience has proved it the one positive means of identfication, because no two finger printe in the world are alike, and because ridges on the balls of the fingers and thumb never change. As a matter of fact, even in criminal identification work—where exist, of course, the largest number of finger print experts —the finger print system of identification is being used practically to the exclusion of all others. Both New York State and City use the finger print eystem exclusively.

I am firmly convinced that everyone should be finger printed. There is no more reason why parents should object to having their children finger printed than having them vaccinated.