FINGER-PRINTS AS EVIDENCE.

Evening Star, Issue 12760, 13 March 1906, Page 2

FINGER-PRINTS AS EVIDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —As we have introduced this system (or rather mode) of identification into our criminal jurisprudence, and as all criminal investigators know the danger of too much expert evidence, will yon kindly print the : enclosed from an English (London) paper. A very strong point was made of the finger- . prints found on the cash-box, hut, from > first to last, me of the brothers denied • guilt. It is true the comparisons were • mad© after the arrest, hence the greater the ■ danger. One fears the evidence of finger- : prints-is''given somewhat dogmatically. I - am glad to see onx Labor Councils are moving in the direction of a public defender. Too much zeal is bad zeal

" Finger-prints as evidence formed the subject cf an address delivered by Dr G. Garson to the members of the Medico-Legal Society last night. By the aid of an interesting series of lantern photographs he showed how the patterns of the ridges of the finger-tips are classified and compared. These ridges are finer in women and children, and best marked an the fingers of persons who do a certain amount of. manual work; but those whose labor is very severe wear them down, while by the wearing of gloves continually they become small and atrophied. They do not change or vary during life, and those of all the fingers of no two individuals have been found to be identical. The determination, however, of the identity of an impression made casually with that of a prisoner or suspect is sometimes a problem of great difficulty, and Dr Garson insisted on the imperative necessity of the presence of many points absolutely agreeing and the absence of any disagreement in details, one clear difference establishing the fact that the prints were not of tho same finger. In illustration he showed photographs of the print made on the cash-box in the Deptford murder and of that of Alfred Stratton's finger, and pointed out in detail his reasons for concluding that they were not made by the same person."—l am, etc., P.M. March 12.