CHAPTER VI

Reduced Copy of Police Register Form

Reverse Side of Form

It may be necessary to test the concurrence of curved lines in two exhibits similarly enlarged. At one time I used strips of plumber’s lead, placed edgeways on the curved lines to be compared. They could be flexed so as to show the various sinuosities, however complex, but leaden tapes cannot readily be made to retain the form imparted to them. Copper wire I found to be stiffer, but it readily warps off the plane. An excellent way isto draw on transparent paper a line corresponding to the curved line seen underneath. The transparency is then transferred and adjusted to the other enlargement, the curves of which should be seen to be congruent. The instrument called “flexible curves” which is used by engineers and mechanical draughtsmen I at last tried, and found it to be exceedingly serviceable for such comparisons. The pattern “B,” self-clamping, 12-inch size, is for most cases the most suitable. Other patterns are made also, in sizes of 9 and 18 inches. The “B” pattern has a flexible steel strip, like the lead tape just mentioned. After the curve or series of sinuosities has been adjusted correctly, the shape is rigidly retained by means of a stiff-hinged link-work arrangement attached by tabs. The strip of steel should not be pressed down between two tabs, and when bending or straightening out theinstrument one should do so bit by bit, beginning at one end and continuing onwards from there. This useful self-clamping instrument used to be supplied by Mr. Wm. Brooks, scientific instrument maker, 33 Fitzroy Street, Tottenham Court Road, London. Another instrument of this kind, the “Curve Rule” is sold by Mr. W. Harling, 47 Finsbury Pavement, E.C., and is figured here.

Flexible Curves.

Harling’s J. R. B. Curve Rules.

In dealing with suchapproximatecurves as one finds among the lineations of finger-prints, one is not supposed to apply strictly mathematical principles. The lines, for example, have breadth, but not quite invariable breadth. We must, therefore, avoid treating them, as a beginner fresh from the schools is apt to do, as ideal concepts. The simpler terms, however, as used by a teacher of drawing, with the provisos already hinted at, will serve very well to guide one’s efforts, or to explain one’s own conceptions before a magistrate or a jury.

Besides the congruity of the curves, one has further to test the single lineations, their junctions, number, and character. An excellent way to envisage these is to make alternate linings with blue and red pencil, to represent them as they seem. To do this effectively one may single out a special measured square, or circle, or parallelogram, of the enlarged figure. Proceed then, quite ignoring, if need be, all great curvatures, to consider the lines as simple curved or straight lines, and analyse them into composing elements, like twigs of a tree or the characteristics of a runic alphabet. The result will be, perhaps, like the figure on the next page.

It will now be quite easy to orient, or place correctly in space, the corresponding part of the other print—if it really does correspond—and a similar“rune” should result. One may afterwards follow out each recognized lineation into further complexities or joinings, as you might trace out a railway line with its various junctions in a map.

Diagrammatic Analysis of Lineations in a Restricted Section.

A photographic enlargement, meant for forensic use, ought not to be marked or soiled in any way, but dots of coloured chalk or ink might be placed along the margins to denote where imaginary ruled lines might begin or end. One might also use glazed tissue paper, ruled in squares, or with eccentric circles like the mileage lines in a map of London. By the use of these placed over the figure one might verify particular coincidences or demonstrate discrepancies.

When the skin-pattern is impressed upon soft sealing-wax, clay, putty, and so on, therelievoimage produced is different in this way from an ordinary ink-printed pattern. The convex ridges are now concave furrows, while the hollows are changed into heights.

In both kinds of impressions a reverse ormirrorpattern is produced, a matter of some practical importance. This effect may, or may not again be reversed in the photographic process. It is not impossible, in such circumstances, that a suspect’s finger might be confused with a resembling “mirror” pattern, which was really not his own.

I have thought that the wordverso, used technically for the reverse of a coin or medal, might be usefully employed in dactylography for the reverse or mirror image of a finger-pattern when printed. A technical word for the indented impression made by a finger on wax and the like is also wanted. Now geologists use-liteas a terminal to express the impression or cavity which had been formed in a rock, when soft, by the impressed body of an organism. Hence the worddactylolitemight be used to denote an indented impression of a finger.

Kew Micrometer.

In making measurements of exhibits, the Kew micrometer devised by Sir Joseph Hooker is of much service. It is figured here, and has the useful quality of rendering measurements at the same time in both the English and decimal systems.

For the method of encircling suspect smudges, either before or after enlargement, and measuring from onefixed centre by the Kew micrometer or ordinary compasses, I have devised a disc of glass such as is used in microscope slides, and about the size of half-a-crown. In the centre is a conical pit into which one leg of the compass rests. Precise centring is thus obtained without the slightest risk of damaging the photographic or other exhibit by the sharp point of the compasses, which have, at the same time, free swing. These were prepared for me by Mr. Franks, optician, Stoke-on-Trent, and cost very little.

Glass Disc Centred(enlarged).

In all measurements close to a fork or junction, as in the crook of the letterY, care must be taken in counting the lines below or above the fork. Ambiguity readily arises, with a train of resulting discrepancies. Other ambiguities also occur which require mention in a word or two. In deciphering an ancient manuscript blurred, mouldy, mayhap worm-eaten, doubts may arise as to which of two or three possible words or letters may have been intended. One looks for some rationality in the author’s writing, but in finger-prints there can beno such help. In manuscripts the problem may not directly be as to a word, but only as to a letter, but that single letter, read differently, may change the tenor of a passage. Isfragmented letter Cto be read asCor asGor asO? Isfragmented letter Eto be read asEor asB? So Fork is liable to be read as Pork.

Now, a very similar difficulty frequently occurs in reading a blurred finger-print, and such evidence should be scrutinized with the greatest vigilance, and all really doubtful cases should be discarded as useless in evidence. While the obscurity is sometimes merely due to defective printing, there are several patterns of frequent occurrence which are liable to be read variably. This was discussed at some length in chapter iii. of theGuide. There is a tendency so to view blots or blurs in such a case, that the cloudy spots become a weasel or even a whale. In Japan there are artists’ wine-parties, where a common game is to make an accidental splash of ink or colour, which is passed on to the next guest, who in turn converts it by one or more strokes of the brush into a figure of some character. Some years ago, I gave to a young men’s meeting a lecture on Ghosts, in which I showed a collection of ink-splashes produced without design, some of which were quite strikingly artistic in their suggestive impressionism. Hence the importance of clear printing, vigilant scrutiny of exhibits to be compared, and the attention of a well-informed judge and intelligent jury.

In certain circumstances, when a suspected person has been arrested abroad or at a distance, it may be desirable to compare his fresh finger-prints broadly with that of some well-known criminal whose registerhas been long in the hands of the police. This want led me to suggest, in 1905, that photo-telegraphy, in one of its forms, might be brought into use. Many improvements have been made since then, and it is now, I think, quite feasible to secure and transmit to a great distance outline lineations quite good enough for use at a preliminary enquiry, previous to a remand or committal.

A human finger, in ordinary circumstances, may preserve, unimpaired, not only its general pattern of lineations, sometimes very intricate, during its owner’s lifetime, but the minutest details also may be discerned after thirty or forty years, quite unchanged as elements of a pattern, and very likely for a longer period, though scientific observation has not extended much beyond that limit. Long immersion, after death, in water, till the skin is quite sodden, does not readily destroy, does not even greatly obscure, the lineations for the purpose of comparison with earlier printed records of them, and one can still read into finger-print type, so to speak, the lineations of an Egyptian mummy.

When first I ventured to call the attention of the scientific world to the patterns of finger-prints in 1879 or 1880, I suggested that the ancient mummies of Egypt might possibly be found to have retained those features sufficiently to be studied. I had no opportunity of obtaining access to such remains in order to test the point, but on returning to England I found that anticipation to be amply justified, as anyone may verify by a visit to the British Museum. The skin of a mummy is contracted, hard, and wrinkled, but one may trace the lineations through all their loops, joinings, ramifications and whorls, with great distinctness. So that it follows, did an Egyptian register of finger-prints exist, we mightunearth the names and titles or deeds of some of those men who lived several thousands of years ago.

There is nothing, so far as has yet been observed, to mark their race out as essentially different from our own, nor do any ancient finger-prints look unlike those of present-day people’s.

The ridges on toes and fingers are visible in children born prematurely, even at a very early period, as I have observed in the practice of my profession, and as soon as the lineations are at all discernible they are of human type. So far as has yet been observed, we do not find that the growing human embryo repeats a history of finger-patterns, beginning at an earlier and lowlier biological stage, as is sometimes contended to be the case in regard to some other organic structures undergoing development.

The efforts I first made to investigate the problem of permanence were chiefly directed to the earlier periods of life, as presenting the greatest likelihood of variation in patterns during rapid growth. A large number of Japanese children, and also some thirty-five or more children of European parentage, in ages from five to ten, were minutely examined time after time during a period of two years—some of them again at longer intervals—without a single variation being detected. The lines and patterns in the fingers of growing children broaden out as the infant grows, but the ideal form—so to speak—of the pattern itself, retains full sway. To grasp this conception clearly is almost the whole science of finger-print identification.

During that period, some of those children suffered severely from scarlet fever, which, as a new disease,took a severe form in Japan, and the desquamation, or skin-peeling, was unusually severe, so that in those cases the test was a severe one. On several occasions I have called attention to the possibility of severe desquamation being followed by some change of patterns, and I still think this subject merits the attention of medical men, but no actual fact illustrating the apparent danger has yet been brought under notice. This may, however, be simply the result of a high degree of inattention to a subject which medical men do not seem to have interested themselves in until very recently. In acromegaly, a disease in which the fingers take on gigantic features, one might expect to find a very notable change of patterns, perhaps the addition of fresh lineations, but after some attempts to collect information not one single example of the kind has yet reached me.

Besides testing growing children in the manner I have stated, many Japanese medical students between the ages of twenty and thirty were made use of in this way. The ridges were carefully shaved by razors, or smoothed away by sand-paper, emery dust, or pumice stone, so that no distinct patterns could be traced. The same tests were applied to my own fingers and to those of one or two medical friends who were quite sceptical as to the continuity of the patterns. Many of the patients at the hospital, or out-door dispensary, were also induced to submit, but not a single instance of variation in the patterns was ever brought to light. My own fingerprints have not varied since that date, a period of fully thirty years. However smooth the surface had been made, the old design came up again with perfect fidelity, yielding exactly the same imprints as before, subjectonly to those very minor variations already described in a previous chapter, to which even engravings are subject. Up to the period of my final return to England in 1887, a period of nearly nine years, enthusiastic and vigilant observation of this point gave me complete confidence in the permanence of finger-print patterns as a basis of personal identification. With the exception of acromegaly and skin-peeling after acute fevers, I can conceive of no biological reason why changes might be anticipated in those patterns, and up to the present no evidence has reached me that even those conditions do effect pattern changes. In old age the ridges shrink somewhat, and wrinkles here and there betray the drying up of tissues, which facts are revealed in printed impressions by fine white lines, often cutting across the lineations, not unlike those which occur in box-wood engravings, where hair-like lines betray some cleavage of the wood. In such a case the value of the pattern is not affected as a proof of identity. One may go beyond that, and say that, if after a lapse of forty years or so the old pattern is now crossed by wrinkles which were not there in youth, the two prints are from the same individual.

Other observers—Sir Francis Galton, Sir William Herschel, and the police of this and other countries—have accumulated a vast store of conclusive evidence on this point.

We are now amply justified in assuming that, for all practical purposes of identification, the patterns on human fingers are, throughout life, persistent and unchangeable. Such slight and transient changes—not due to mere variations of pressure, inking, and the like,as they usually are—are no more likely to invalidate an identification than a new freckle or pimple on a man’s face would make him unrecognizable by his intimate friends.

Dr. J. G. Garson, in an article in theDaily Expressof July 20th, 1905, writing on this subject, which he has carefully studied,said:—

“It is now a well ascertained fact that every person bears on his fingers as certain proof of his identity as he does on his face. The latter is, however, that part of his anatomy by which he is most readily identified by the world at large, though to his intimate friends other particulars about him may characterise him equally strongly. By means of the eye, thetout ensembleof the countenance is registered upon the mind, generally regardless of details respecting the actual form of each particular feature—in short, a person is recognized and identified by exactly the same psychological process as a printed or written word is read without first spelling it.”

It must be clear to any student of the subject thatpersistence of patternsmust become the basis of identification in this way, and that persistence is now as firmly established as anything can be as to living creatures.

Sir Edward Henry, in hisFinger-Prints, says (p. 17, 3rd edition): “Impressions being required for permanent record, their utility must, in great measure, be contingent upon the persistence through long periods of time, of the general form of the pattern and of the details of the ridges constituting it.” No such stability has yet been shown to exist in regard to any other part of the body. The bones change very greatly, not only in size, but in shape, texture, and mechanical conditions through life. Even the ordinary features and expression of a human being by no means can be said to remainuniform. One sees a friend during many short intervals, and is not finely observant of minute changes that in a decade or two amount collectively to an almost complete transformation of the man’s whole face and figure. The photographic system of identification, although serving a purpose now and then, was found, therefore, to be untrustworthy.

My revered teacher, Lord Lister, noted the slow migrations of the pigmentary particles that make the web-like patterns on a frog’s foot. I have observed similar but still slower changes in ordinary freckles on a human hand. The white spots of leucoderma—a skin-disease that used to be confused with leprosy, from which it entirely differs—are often bounded with dark borders, into which the pigment particles have migrated from the white spots. A negro’s skin sometimes becomes white where a fly-blister has been applied, as a fair-skinned person is often marked with a dark patch after a similar application. The pigment particles move to and fro like living things, though very slowly, and the marks they collectively make on a living body are not fixed and stable. Again, we have seen that the police used to record the position of wens, tumours, tattoo marks and the like. But tumours are now often removed through the line of natural creases, or wrinkles, leaving very faint traces, if any, behind.

An official in Japan had a large wen on his forehead, which disfigured him greatly. He was getting elderly, and told me, when friends brought him, that he would as soon have the wen as a scar. I got him to consent to have it removed through the natural wrinkle in the forehead, after which it left no visible trace at all.

A curious case was that of a man whose back and shoulders were adorned by a large collection of a certain kind of tumour varying from the size of a chestnut to that of a hen’s egg. They all disappeared, without the use of the knife, leaving no scar behind, and only a slight lowering and thinning of the skin.

Even scars, themselves, sometimes very unsightly ones, tone away to a large extent, till they cease to be at all conspicuous. The colour of the hair changes greatly in some people at the various stages of life. Certain diseases, too, such as malarious affections, the action of the sun, and certain employments, change the complexion in a very remarkable way.

What the pole-star used to be in navigation, fingerprint patterns are now become for all serious purposes of practical identification.

Having secured some technical knowledge of how to print, and how to read old finger-prints correctly and with confidence when they turn up again in experience, we are faced now with the problem of how to classify and arrange them for secure preservation and prompt and easy reference, whatever may be our object.

In natural history, in biological facts generally, it is not always easy to define the objects of study strictly, so as to classify them in a practical way. Dealing, however, with printed finger-patterns which are no longer living and changing things, we can hope to secure some of the advantages of a mechanical method. Verworn, in hisGeneral Physiology(p. 71) says, very justly: “The fixing of sharp limits and definitions must contain, finally, a more or less arbitrary element, [that], indeed, all limits and definitions are only psychological helps towards knowledge.” Bearing this principle in mind, then, what is the end or object we aim at in a system of finger-print classification?

The objects of identifying a person with some one who has had a name and left a history are of various kinds, as criminal, civil, military, naval, medical, legal, scientific, and insurance purposes. Now, in regard to the use of finger-prints for so many ends in view, a difficulty presents itself. It occurred to me at the outset of my studies, that if the system were to prove trustworthyand useful, even in a minor degree, immense numbers of people in civil life, in army, navy, and mercantile services, or under criminal conviction, would require to have their prints correctly classified, indexed, and arranged for easy reference. How could it be possible in so vast a collection or series of collections to find the one single record wanted? To ransack—unaided by a scientific method of classification—the register of an army containing some 500,000 soldiers would involve the search of a much larger number of cards or sheets than 500,000, according to the duration of regular service, and other possible conditions. To do this would obviously be quite as hopeless and futile a task as groping for a lost needle in a huge hay-field. The problem was to find a system which would facilitate the search in ahigh degree. Any mere slight assistance would still leave the essential problem unsolved. Now, we might have found in finger-prints mere variety without persistence, or mere persistence without initial variety, and in either case the study could yield little practical result. Again, mere diversity, however persistent, without some elements of underlying resemblance, would not have yielded a basis for such a methodic arrangement as was obviously required.

Much aid came to me from the first, as I have already hinted, from five years’ daily laborious experience in sorting and comparing analogous but artificial patterns in the now obsolete Paisley shawl trade, but in the case now in view colour did not come in as an aid to arrangement. This problem, moreover, was not one of those the poet derides as of mere “gold or clay,” butas I saw, it concerned itself with human lives, and was a task, indeed, that might awaken in the dullest mind a keen sense of moral responsibility in proposing its general use as a new and quite trustworthy method of criminal and other modes of identification. The expert in charge might suddenly be called upon after a little expansion of the system to prove the identity of some evil-doer out of many thousands of possible persons, or to subject a suspected person, on the evidence of a few smudgy streaks of ink or blood, to life-long servitude, or to the irremediable doom of a shameful death. In my own case, at this early stage, the mere possibility of a single serious false identification by a method as yet untried became really terrible to contemplate. After closer study, a clear path began to open through the tangled jungle.

Some familiarity with the equipment of a Far-Eastern printing-press had been afforded me while editingThe Chrysanthemum, a monthly magazine published in Tokyo, and devoted to the discussion of Japanese topics of literary, scientific, or antiquarian interest. There were some hundreds of thousands of different forms of type, all classified in so convenient a way that any compositor, by running about a little more actively than would be quite compatible with the grave dignity of an English printing establishment, could soon find the character in whatever form of fount he desired. The idea suggested itself then, that analogous qualities as a basis for classification of the finger-patterns might be revealed by a closer study of Chinese. I do not know Chinese—some years’ close study has convinced me of that. However, each Chinese ideograph, for dictionarypurposes, is supposed to be built up around an element called by western lexicographers itskeyorradical, and of these there are two hundred and twelve. You look for the radical in an unknown character, and then look for that radical in its serial place in the two hundred and twelve. It is a question then, as in finger-prints, of counting strokes, and if the strokes are alike in number in any two instances, of looking then as to how they are arranged. Two characters with the same number of pen-strokes under the same radical or key, may bear quite a different aspect.

A Chinese character is defined and limited, but a finger-print pattern often, or usually, trails off into indeterminate lineations of little value for classification purposes. Hence we seek in the latter to isolate for study the central part of the pattern, where the intricacy of the ramifications usually rises to a maximum. The space covered by the lineations that matter is not usually greater than, often not so wide as, the space occupied by the head of the Sovereign on an English postage stamp. Into this brief compass is compressed a world of significance. A courteous and intelligent young detective in Scotland Yard asked me (in 1886 or 1887, when I was advocating the adoption of finger-print identification), did I really propose to rest identification on features contained within so small a space? I answered him, in pointing to a railway map of London, to consider a net-work of junctions which I indicated, if he would not be justified in saying if that fragment, torn away from its context, were presented to him, that it was a portion of a map of London? After a little scrutiny, he admitted that was so. I had no difficulty inshowing him then, that the condensed ramifications of a single finger-print within the very limited area proposed by me were much greater than that of the significant portion of the London map I had just pointed out to him.

In tracking a criminal by a single impression made by a finger, the lineations in so small a space would require to have been clearly imprinted, and to have what many finger-print patterns have not, some notable or significant characteristics about it. Then, when enlarged by photography into a picture of some thirty inches, the measurements from fixed points in the pattern should correspond with those of the person in custody, on suspicion, and the curves should be shown to concur in all their sinuosities. But, in comparing two official imprints of the ten fingers properly and clearly impressed, there should be no difficulty, the points of comparison being overwhelming.

In a possible collection of half-a-million or a million complete sets of finger-prints, can the one before me, of one Thomas Atkins, John Doe, or Richard Roe—under whatever alias—be promptly found if it is there, or, if not there, can its absence be conclusively determined? We have seen, I think, that if two such patterns are confronted, common-sense, and the use of fine measurements, will soon determine whether they be of the same original, or different. The problem, then, is to get this swift and sure confrontation effected.

This problem engaged my attention from the first, or at least not many months after I first began to attend to finger-patterns, and in 1880, when I proposed the printing and recording of the ten fingers of old criminals,I had thought out the same method now outlined in this chapter. It would be impossible to compress all the details necessary to work out the matter officially, without producing a work as large, and perhaps as expensive, as a Chinese dictionary, of which the probabilities are that one or perhaps two copies might be sold.

I laid this matter in outline before Inspector Tunbridge, in his official capacity, in 1888, and again before the War Office Committee, at which an Under-Secretary of the Home Office was present, taking diligent notes. The system now in official use—an improvement made by Sir Edward R. Henry upon Sir F. Galton’s very premature attempt (after a few years’ study in old age) seems to work practically, and therefore I have no criticism to offer, further than to suggest, that if in our system of mercantile book-keeping we had retained the use of Roman numerals, fortunes might continue to be made or lost. I cannot think, however, that our merchants would now give up the Arabic notation for the more complex and clumsy one of ancient Italy. Nor is nature likely to resume her interest in the kangaroo and its future.

Science seeks simplicity, and theSyllabic system, now familiar to every one who uses a telegraphic code, is what I proposed for finger-print registers. In this I simply followed the method of transliterating Japanese and Chinese words into syllables of the Roman alphabet, a condition originally imposed by the old Japanese language itself, in which consonants do not occur singly, but are followed by vowels. Purkinje’s first analysis of the finger-print patterns was not known to me, nor, I believe, to anyone in Europe or America, when I firstwrote, although I often in those years suggested that he had probably written something on the subject. My first article inNature, as sent up, contained a kind of analysis of patterns, with many types, named as whorls, ovals, deltas, loops, junctions, and the like. Some are referred to in the text, but the editor expressed his regret that he had not been able to insert the figures, and their lack made the references in my article obscure. We shall deal with a few of these elementary or typical figures presently. But, let us now come to the main aspect of the syllabic system, in contrast with that devised by Sir F. Galton, who looked upon it as merely ancillary to the anthropometric system of Mons. A. Bertillon, of the French police. Galton was supremely anxious to have his natural facts, his finger-print records, arranged precisely in similar parcels, so that one would not be excessively rich in records compared with its neighbour. Now, what does it matter to the keeper of records, or even to the tax-payer, whether one class of patterns is big or little? The whole absurd complexity arising now, and increasing from year to year, grows out of this essential misapprehension from the first of the vital problems of finger-print classification. Advancing a stage for the moment, let us suppose that a rich register exists, arranged on the syllabic system. A type-writer, not necessarily a very intellectual creature, or a boy-clerk, is in the room, and has the call to findA-bra-ca-da-bra. I use here for convenience only five syllables, representing one hand. The sheets or cards (sheets have been found best by experience) are not separated in bundles except as to a convenient size. It does not take long to look along the shelves tillA-bra-etc., is reached,and then the cabalistic word itself. It may prove that there are some ten sheets on the register under this syllabic title. These are transmitted, all in a few moments, to the expert keeper of the records. At a glance an expert eye like his perceives that, perhaps, seven out of the ten can have no possible relation to the case now being enquired into. Of the three, one is perhaps now in prison and cannot be the suspect. Of the two remaining forms, the details of the first two fingers compared may diverge completely in many ways, as determined by counting lines, measuring curves, and so on. I am sure this would be no fancy description, from the many tests I have applied. The whole strain of the recognition lies on the expert, as the strain of the primary classification of records had lain upon him at the time they were being made. Of course, more than one expert might be needed.

It will be noticed, perhaps, that the syllablebraoccurs twice on the same hand register. It by no means follows that the finger-print represented by the secondbrais very like that of the first one. In the same way, none of the patterns indicated bybrain the cards of similar syllabic index may much resemble the others, even broadly. The pattern simply is of a certain typical form with whichbrais to be linked for registration purposes. The same word, so to speak, might be divided in a different syllabic way,thus:—

Ab-ra-cad-ab-ra;Ab-rac-ad-ab-ra; and so on.

Hence the necessity of separating the syllables by hyphens.

The divergence of cards will be greater, of course, inthe case of a two-hand register, and even in one which comprehended, say, one million of complete sets there would be very few repetitions of the same arrangement of syllables.

One great advantage of the syllabic form is the help given to the memory in transferring the eye from one sheet to others which may be wanted. In the system now in use the symbols do not rivet themselves in the same way, and have a monotony that becomes very tiring.

A general view of the precise intention aimed at in the particular register must determine the extensiveness of the form the register is to compass. Are the numbers likely to be large? Must the registers extend over long periods? Are infants to be kept in view over adult life, if that is reached? Many enquiries of this kind may have to be met before the exact form of the cards or sheets is determined. For such civil and social purposes as life insurances, signatures of deeds, benefit of friendly societies, and the like, a comparatively simple form of register and limited number of finger imprints might be all that would be required for an effective service. The number of cards would not be very great, and the probabilities of personation would likely be restricted to a few local residents whose finger-prints would not often be found even to approach coincidence in a slight degree. To serve such needs, an elementary form of classification would go a long way to overtake ordinary requirements, and would be easy of reference. Few of the difficulties involved in graver conditions of legal identification need be raised as an objection to the general use in banking and ordinary business of this new mode of identification.In forming a system, even with a very wide range, the whole amount of possible complexity in finger-patterns need rarely be called upon, and could not conceivably be exhausted. I speak confidently on this point. The central part of the pattern used is generally very limited, and its area may be widened whenever an enlargement of the primary requirements may demand more complexity in the factors of identification. The ramifications will usually provide variety enough to satisfy the most avaricious register.

Some of the main conditions on which the problem of alphabetic arrangement of the index depends may now be set forth, before we proceed to consider how those conventional syllables are to be formed which indicate patterns.

1.—Distinction is not made between capital and lower-case letters. Simple letters are too soon exhausted in a register of any considerable size. It is obvious that syllables give a much greater variety. As far as possible, commensurate with the dimensions of the register, the syllables should be kept few, simple, compact, and pronounceable. The vowels have the Italian sound. No syllables should contain more than four letters at the utmost.

2.—When a doubt arises as to the proper syllabic reading of a finger-pattern, the earlier letters of the Roman alphabet have the precedence, thusbbefored,lbeforex.

3.—Where the core of a pattern seems to contain two or more clusters of significant lineations, choose for the index syllable that on the right side of the pattern, or, if that is difficult to determine, next that which is highestin position. In such a case, reference to orientation or position refers to the usual or official pattern. In dealing with a smudge of unknown origin, the various possibilities may be tried, assuming relative order of position, as above.

4.—When spaces or figures, such as ovals or circles, are described as “large,” that means wider than the space occupied by two average lineations in that finger-print.

5.—When a finger-pattern has been permanently defaced or obliterated by injury or disease, the missing mark may be denoted by an asterisk (*). If the finger itself is missing, by deformity or mutilation, the asterisk may be encircled with anO. A special compartment of the register might be kept for the reception of all such cases.

6.—Badly-printed or obscure patterns should be held in reserve under a special register classified according to probabilities, aided by cross indexing, and receiving special attention from the higher experts. Official patterns badly printed should at once be repeated, if possible, before confusion arises.

7.—Registers for naval or military, and banking, insurance, and general purposes, should be kept strictly free from any police supervision or control.

The syllables in my system, viewed as lexicographic elements, consist of the ordinary Roman vowels and consonants, the vowels being pronounced, as already said, as in the Italian language. I hold in reserve for additional official purposes a few additional characters, such as the Greek letterdeltaΔ. Those, however, need not be dealt with in the brief space now available, and would only be required, I believe, in pretty extensiveregisters. The functions of the conventionally fixed vowels may be better understood after we have sampled a few of the consonants.

As suggested to me by Sir Isaac Pitman’s system of phonography, learned in student years, I arranged the consonants in co-related pairs, thus:p, b;t, d;s, z;h, f;l, r;k, g;v, w;ch(considered as a consonantal character),j;m, n.

I have already pointed out, in dealing with problematic smudges, the need of understanding patterns apart from their actual orientation, which, in an unknown person’s case, may have to be assumed, an attitude which may be determined by official bias. This I have entered more fully upon in theGuide to Finger-Print Identification.

Holding this principle in view, then, let us now take some of the simpler elements of patterns in their very simplest forms, and first consider those grouped under the paired consonants.

ChandJ.

Each of these characters is taken to represent a hook with a short leg.Chis considered as one consonant, and asCis not otherwise wanted, it might have been used alone but for its pronunciation being indefinite. If in the usual form of official imprint the hook, with its curve below, has its short leg facing to the left, thus,J, it is duly represented by the Roman letter of that shape. Observe that if you invert this character, or the type which represents it, thusinverted letter J, it will still point the observer to theJpart of the index, on getting the curve set right.

If the short leg of the figure points to the right it comes underCh. If that happens to confront one in its inverted position it cannot be mistaken for aJfigure,but must be looked for underCh. In all cases the degree or direction of slope in the figures, with a few peculiar exceptions, is of no concern whatever, simplicity and directness of appeal being aimed at from the first.

BandP.

These consonants are used to denote a bow.Bis the form of a simple bow with one lineation, or if two or more lineations blend into one, they are found on theleftside when the convexity of the curve is upwards.Pis such a bow, but strengthened, as it were, by one or more blended lineations on therightside, with the same position of the curve. A single line bow is never represented byP. If a bow with a plurality of blended lineations is inverted the reading is not at all affected.

TandD

represent pear-shaped, or battledore-like figures.Tdenotes such a figure free from attachment to environing lineations, whileDstands for a similar figure fixed by its stem. Reverse the position of the figure or turn it upside down and its index quality is not affected.

KandG

represent spindle-like forms, like the above but withtwo(opposite) stems instead of one. When the figure is moored by one stem it is denoted byK; when fixed at both ends or free at both, byG. Position does not affect these figures.

VandW.

These letters stand for whorls or spirals, a kind of figure that often presents much difficulty in finger-print classification.Wis a whorl in which, tracing its course from the centre outwards, the pen goes round as a clock-hand turns, or as one looking towards the southperceives the sun to cross the sky.V, on the other hand, is one which, traced in the same way (from within outwards), the pen goes like the clock-hand backwards, orwiddershins. Alteration in position makes no practical difference whatever in the reading of those figures into their proper syllables for an index.

OandQ

AlthoughOis a vowel and will be met with again under that class, it is paired in a kind of way withQ.

Odenotes asmallcircle or oval, or opaque, round, or ovoid dot,contained in the core of a pattern.

Qdenotes alargecircle or oval, containing, usually within itself, other pattern elements of small dimensions.

A circle or ovoid is calledlargewhen it occupies a space wider than two average lineations of that finger-pattern in which it occurs. If any doubt exists, by the principle previously mentioned, the figure is referred toOas prior toQin alphabetical sequence.

MandN

denote figures somewhat resembling mountain peaks,Msignifying an outline like that of a typical volcanic peak, whileN, though similar, ends in a rod-like form, as of a flag-staff on a mountain top. Invert either of those typical forms and they can be read as before.

A curved cliff-like form, like a wave with a curling crest, may be indicated by the Spanish ñ.

LandR

denote loops in which curvatures are apt to occur.Lis a loop, the axis of which is straight, whileRis one the axis of which is curved or crooked.

Note that if the legs of a loop widen out beyond the parallels, it is no longer a loop, but a bow or a mountain.They may narrow again and yet remain loops till at last they coalesce, when the figure is transformed into a spindle or a battledore (T,D;orK,G). If the bend is more than that of a right angle, it comes under a new definition, and has some qualities of the whorl or spiral, but is more complex. This need not be entered upon here.

SandZ

I have used these two consonants to indicate certain patterns of a sinuous, undulating, or zig-zag type, the sinuous or purely undulating figures coming underS, but underZif there is at least one distinct angularity in the pattern.

This letter, long familiar to the student of algebra as the symbol of the undetermined, I have reserved for the inclusion of various nondescript and anomalous patterns. Those might become fairly numerous in an extensive register, and in such case there would, no doubt, be found a good basis for fresh sub-classification.

FandH

These two aspirates are made to do useful service, not unlike that of vowels, but not of sufficient interest to be noted in a work like this.

We have thus, with the use of consonants alone, built up a kind of osseous or skeletal system, and we have now but to add the vowels to make those dry bones speak. Let us now consider this element in the syllabic method.

This vowel indicates that the interior of a given loop, whorl, circle, or containing pattern of any kind, is emptyor vacant. Dealing here only with the simpler conditions in which combinations of vowels and consonants are found, such a figure will be indexed asRa, La, Ta, Da, as the dominant consonant may require. Such combinations asar, al, at, ad, etc., may occur, but this would lead us into too many intricate ramifications for a work like the present.

If a pattern is very simple—consisting, for example, of almost parallel lines—it may be denoted by the letterAalone. There are such patterns, and they seem to be somewhat commoner among certain of the negro tribes. I have mentioned in a previous chapter such a pattern on the toe of a lady, and they are typical almost in some monkeys.

When we find in the interior of some loop, bow, or other pattern, a group of not less than three short detached lines, or dots, this is to be indicated by the use ofEwith the ruling consonant, aste, re, me, and so on.

stands for a simple detached line, or not more than two parallel lines, in the heart of an encircling pattern.

stands for a little oval or circle, or for a round or oval-shaped dot in a core. If the circle, oval, etc. islarge, extending over a width occupied by two lineations, then it is treated as a consonantal form. [See alsoQ.]

indicates a fork with two or more prongs within a core, forking towards the bend of bow, loop, mountain, etc. A single prong or spur standing out like a twig is to be distinguished from a fork.

is for a similar fork as described above, but turning its two or more prongs away from the concavity of its enclosing loop, bow, etc.

Besides the direct combination of simple vowels and consonants, which arrangement by itself gives great variety to the index registers, an immense number of syllables are formed by combinations of two or more consonants, while some few of the vowels are treated as long or short where the pattern needs further discrimination; as, forexample:—

bra,spo,art,prīd,prĭd,nut,nūt.

By this method the most extensive register is grippedand needs no other index than its own essential structure. If the sheets or cards are kept in their proper sequence, and it would require to be the duty of some one—not necessarily an expert—to see that the alphabetic syllables were kept in serial order, there should be no difficulty in finding the document sought for, if it is there at all.

In translating fresh finger-prints into syllabic form, one has to catch the ideal design, so to speak, in the pattern. The consonantal skeleton, in one of its duplicate forms, is then examined for its containing vowel, and the syllable is complete. The work can be done with amazing rapidity after one is familiar with the patterns, which soon appeal direct to the eye as the type does in a printed book.

Let us now look at a few examples tabulated to show how the system works in detail.

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