FINGER-PRINT EVIDENCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 27

FINGER-PRINT EVIDENCE.

(Faoit Our Own Correspondent.)

f'HRISTCHURCH, February 13. The finiger-piint spstem of identification secured another conviction in tbe Supreme Court this moimng. In gmrig evidence in the caa« against a man who was charged with breaking and entering a house at Ricearton. Edmund Walter Dirmie, of the finger-print bureau, Wellington, said he took ar«'u>ed's finger-prints at the Lambton quay Police Station last September. On November 7 he received tlie money box (produced) bearing finger-prints, the mo=t distinct of which were photographed and enlarged. Detective Ward's finger-prints were also taken, and those on the box were not the same, but a search revealed that thf»v were identical with the right thumb ant! left middle fiinper of the accused's hands. There were 21 dintinct points of I similarity between the middle finger prints of accused and those on the- money box, and there were 14 visible- points of similarity in the thumb marks. Reckoning that the chances of one point of similarity ' occurring in two persons' finger-prints wore as five to one — which was a very safe estimate, one hundred to one being probably more correct — the chances in The present case nere practically three milho'is to one against a mistake in the identification. Witneas had fctutlictl the finger-print *v=tem for seveinl yoars and had taken lefebous in it at Scotland Yard. Arthur CJarnett Quarteimain, finger-print expert, said he had marked 28 peculiarities in tbe prints on the form and those on the box. Tltere wa-s not one single point of dissimilarity. He had had 100,000 prints through his hands, and had never found two which h« could not easily distinguish. He was absolutely certain that the marks were made by tlve same person. A; , The accused, addressing the jury, asked Them not to rely too much on the evidence lof tho finger-print experts. He had read in the London Gazette of a man who examined 12,000,000 finger-prints and found two of them alike. The prints on the money box were not his, and he would take his dying oath on it. His Honour % said the effect of the evidence was to demonstrate, to an absolute certainty that the man whose finger-prints were recorded on the form taken at Wellington waa the same man that entered the house and handled the money box. If the jury accepted that evidence, the infer- . enee waa that accused took the valuables and money from the house. The jury accepted the evidence, and tbe ' accused was sentenced to. eighteen months' imprisonment* ■