FINGER PRINTS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVII, Issue LVII, 14 May 1910, Page 7

FINGER PRINTS.

ABOUT THEIR RELIABILITY.

[PEEBB ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, May 13.

In his cross-examination of Mr E. W. Dinnie, finger-print experjt of the detective forpe, in the Supreme Court to-day, Mr A. L. Herdman mentioned that he had read some remarks of Ssr J. Madden, Chief Justice of Victoria, s ou the subject sometime ago.- Sir J; Madden had vwarned a jury Ito be careful of such evidence as it had not been absolutely proved that two persons could not make the same prints. • His Honor, the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, said that it did not matter what any judge had said on the question. If a Chief Justice were to make a statement of a scientific nature it bore absolutely no value unless he went into the witness box and was cross-examined .

•Mr Herdman read from a book by one Oliver Cromwell in which it was stated 'that a case was known in which ■fche same marks had been made by two persons. Mr Dinnie immediately showed that he knew still more about the case, and a file produced proof that the marks b.ad been made by the same person under different names and' at different places. The "authority" had based his statement on an erroneous newspaper paragraph.