Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-30
FROM THE FINGER TIPS
A Person Can Be Identified Without
Any Element Of Doubt.
SOME VERY REMARKABLE TESTS.
Simple Precautions That Will Prevent
Premature Badness.
THE CINTEEN SYSTEM IN THE ARMY
ONE VERY REMARKABLE TESTS.
THE CANTEEN SYSTEM IN THE ARMY
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH ]

WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH
There has always been some unsatisfac.
tory element in the methods hitherto
adopted for purposes of Identification, and
many cases are on record in which GRIM
inals have escaped punishment in conse-
quence of the miscarriage of the system
which has been relied on for the establish
ment of their identity. According to Fran
els Galton, there is no longer any occasion
for doubt or difficulty on this score, and he
has shown that in the examination and reg
istration of the marks on finger tips is to be
found an almost infallible method of identi-
flying human beings. The marks on the
finger tips are the mouths of ducts issuing
from the glands of perspiration. Such
ducts, of course, exists all over the body,
and their issues are surrounded by slight
elevations of the skin. But there is diff
ference between the ducts on the inner sur
face of the hands and the soles of the feet,
and those in the other parts of the body, in
that in the former the ducts are contained
in delicate ridges, which are like craters
along the crest of a mountain chain, while
in the latter the ducts are contained in sep
arate elevations like eraters in isolated
cones.
IL Is LQe COnVOluIlO0S Oh THESE IluSeS
which form the patterns on the finger tips.
The general character and details of these
markings are preserved at various periods
of life. The proportions of the ridges may
change with fatness or leanness, and as the
hands are altered by use, disease or age, the
pattern, as whole, may change in length
or breadth, but the number of the ridges
and the details remain the same. The finger
tip has been aptly likened to piece of lace,
the outlines Of which may be changed by
stretching in one way and shrinking in the
same number of threads. Mr.. Galton
gives great number of instances
in which the certainty of this
finger record is established, notably that 81
: a friend whose impressions were preserved
in sealing-wax for II years and found to
correspond with recently taken impress
sions. The same correspondence is shown
in cases where the impression of the thumb
of child of 2Z years is compared with the
record of the same child when 10; in the
finger prints of three persons in childhood,
and again after seven years; the finger
prints of many persons at % or 80 and again
. at so or so, and those of a man at 90 and
again at 80.
The making of the impressions is a very
simple process. Over q glass plate coating
of thin ink is spread by a printers roller
and the finger tips are pressed lightly upon
the glass and then upon paper. Mr.. Galton
has so much faith in this new system that
he looks forward to a time when every con-
vict shall have prints taken of his fingers by
the prison photographer at the beginning
and end of his imprisonment, and register
made of them; when army and navy re-
cruits shall go through the same process;
when the index number of the hands snail
be commonly inserted in advertisements for
persons who are lost or who cannot be identi-
fed, and when every youth who is leaving
his home for long residence abroad shall
obtain prints of his fingers at the same time
that the portrait is photographed, for his
friends to retain as a memento.