FINGER-PRINT STUDY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 47, 19 October 1912, Page 4

FINGER-PRINT STUDY.

Dr. Henry Faulds lias been writing on the study of finger-prints, a line of investigation lie has been associated with for over thirty years. J)r, Faulds contends that, in one form or another the science is now in universal use, and though its application is not restricted to the identification of criminals and the clearing of the innocent, this is the important practical function. Since the introduction of the system to England in 1901 more than 02,000 identifications and recognitions have been made at Scotland Yard, and it seems to be the opinion of the police all over the world that with care it is infallible. The marks, it is now proved, cannot be effaced by water or time—drowned men and mummies carry them inevitably,—if the skin peels they are there below it, and if erased and scrubbed to smoothness j they will return. One writer >sug-1 gests that the astute burglar now i must wear gloves, and he may attempt the further refinement of ‘faking” the prints of some colleague who is positively in gaol; so he would not only confound the particular issue, but would discredit the baneful system. Dr. Faulds is not satisfied'that perfection has been reached in the study, and suggests considerable alterations in i the present systems of grouping. It 1 is proposed that identification by finger-prints should be used in cases ■ of hasty and wholesale burial after earthquakes, battles, or floods, and i certain extensions of the study “might be serviceable to elucidate in some degree the lineage of man.” There is “some tendency to repeat in a quite general way the pattern of s : ra in the hands and feet of sou,” though Dr. Faulds has never found any close correspondence in detail, and there is no. real danger of false identification when several fingers are compared in their proper serial order.”