FINGER PRINTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22067, 25 September 1933, Page 12

FINGER PRINTS

"OFTEN SAVE THE INNOCENT?'

Few people have any knowledge of finger prints, or an opportunity of ■■ becoming, familiar with their intricacies. Those present at a meeting of the Coronation Lodge, Newtown, Wellington, were able to take advantage of an enlightened lecture on the subject by Bro. F. E. Matthews (says the Dominion). The speaker first traced the history _ of finger prints, and after giving a detailed account of their application to criminology, interested his audience by demonstrating the"development up" of prints on glass, by various gases, and of those on metals, such as brass, copper, galvanised iron and steel by acids. "It has always disturbed me to finl how many people look upon finger prints solely as a means for condemning and convicting people," began Bro. Matthews. "Few people realise the usefulness of this wonderful work, which is not confined to identifying criminals, and which is of great and universal value. The finger print system is the one sure method in criminology we have of often saving the innocent person." After outlining the extent to which the finger print system is used in commercial as well as in criminological work, the speaker explained that the use of prints could be traced back as far as 650 A.D. to the Chinese, who employed them on public documents as a method of identification. Dr H. Foulds, a medical superintendent in the eighties of last century, at Tokio, was considered the first person to have written an article on the science and to have forecasted the social usefulness, protection and industrial efficiency possible by the application of prints. Mr Gilbert Thompson, Sir William James Herschel, Sir Francis Galton and Sir E. K. Henry were but a few of the many names associated with the development of finger prints. The adoption of the system in England, continued Bro. Matthews, did not take effect until 1901, and in the United States of America and Canada between 1902 and 1907. A detailed and technical explanations of the classification of finger prints followed, with references to the methods, employed in the United States, where? the system was now extremely widely used and in an advanced stage' of development. -■