The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-10-11
VISIBLE TOKENS
OF IDENTITY.
Markings on Human Fingers Do Not
Change Materially.
What Finger or Finger Print Discloses
When Viewed Under Powerful Lens.
The Way to Identify Convicts.
Every one bears on his body visible

Every one bears on his body visible
token of Identity which has the unique value
Of persisting throughout his whole life. 1t
apparently becomes fully defined some three
months before his birth, and it remains I'M
altered after his death until the final stage
of corruption. This token Of identity lies
in the system of ramifcation of the minute
ridges that run across the palm OF the
bands and soles of the feet, and it more es-
pecially resides in the scrolls or other pat
terms that the ridges form on the inner sur
faces of the bulbs of the fingers. Attention
will be directed almost exclusively TO the
latter, as they are amply sufficient In them
selves for purposes of Identification, while
they are easy to print from and are convent
emily isolated.
The utility of sure means of Identified
ton cannot be doubted, if it admits Of be-
ing easily applied to show either ~ that a
man is the person he processes to be, or ~
that he is not the person whom he is suS-
pected to be, or (3) that he is or is not in
Guided among the persons whose names
and tokens are to be found in any given
register. In criminal invest legations the ex-
lstence of such a method would settle ques-
tons OF personatioD, of mistaken identity,
and OF previous conviction.
In the army and navy it would afford a
sure means of cunvlctng deserters and be
powerful deterrent from desertiOn. 1t would
supply an invaluable adjunct to a severe
p assport system. 1t would be of continual
good service in our tropical settlements.
where the individual members of the
swarms of dark and yellow-skinned races
are mostly unable to sign their names and
are otherwise hardly distiugushabie by
Europeans, and, whether they can write or
not. are grossly addicted to personati0n and
other varieties Of fraudulent practice.
There remain other cases that occur
rarely, but when they do occur are of suifi-
cient Importance to make it well worth the
while of persons about to emigrate to take
the small trouble of leaving their finger
prints behind them as a token of their iden-
tity. For in a large population like ours.
whose members migrate to all quarters OF
the eartn, the instances are numerous oil
men who, having left their homes in youth,
find a difficulty on their return after many
years in proving claims to
KINSHIP AND PROPERTY.
Or some alien scoundrel from foreign
parts may assert himself to be the long lost
rightful claimant to an estate held in pre-
yious security by others on the supposition
of his decease. Lastly. the important need
often arises of performing the gruesome
task of placing data on record that might
afterward serve to identity the unknown
victim of an accident, as of the stranger
who dies in hospital of a wound that left
him speechless, Of bodies washed up after
a wreck, UT Of the other CHASTITY contents Of
a morgue.
NJ. Alphonse Bertillon assures me that he
does not use finger prints in connection with
his system OF ahthropOmetric Identification
which Is now employed in the French crimi-
nal service. The often repeated tale of its
use in the prisons of China is baseless, SO
for | 10 of tod
or, II it is not entirely baseless, ii certainly
rests on very limited foundation that L
have not yet succeeded in discovering. The
only person who has used the method on a
large scale as check against personatl0n
10y natives, is Sir William j. Herschal, dur
ing the tenure of his magistTacy III Bengal,
which commenced between thirty and forty
years ago.
The patterns, as shown in cuts, are
formed by the cOnvolutions of delic ate
ridges, each Of which is seen to be studded
with small holes, which are the open
mouths of ducts issuing from perspiratory
glands As a rule the issues OF all ducts
are surrounded by slight elevations of the
skin, but those on the inner surface Of the
hands and feet have the peculiarly OF not
being contained in separate elevations, like
craters i'll isolated cones, but of occurring
along ridges. like the craters which stud
the crest Of some long mountain chain.
The ridges are based in a curious way on
simultaneous papilae in which the ultimate
organs of touch are inclosed.
The ridges seem to me. to act in a some
what analogous way to the whiskers of
dog or cat Slight pressure at the end Of a
hair in the WhiSker causes fOrcibe pres
sure al the side of the sheath that holds it,
which is easily felt. So the ridges engage
themselves In the roHghnesses of the sur
faces that we explore by rubbing 1t with
the fingers. as is our won't, and the result is
to forcibly affect the organs of touch which
lie below aid to cause q sort of thrill,
which varies according to the degrees of
roughness and enables US to discriminate
it. We learn very little of the nature of
surface by merely pressing the finger upon
it; the ridges do not then come into play in
THE WAY DESCRIBED.
When finger or a finger print is scrutin-
lied under a lens, even of low power, it is
seer to abound in minute peculiarites, due
to the branching of existing ridges, and TO
the abrunt interpretations Of new ones. 1t
is in these minutia, AS well as in the general
character of its outline, in which the eX-
traOrdinary persistence resides on which |
am about to speak. The pattern grows to-
gether with the finger, and its proportions
vary with fairness or leanness, and are fur
Their deformed by usage, govt and age,
which makes the hands of old people less
slightly than those of young ones. But.
though the pattern, as whole, may become
considerably altered in length and breadth,
the number of ridges that concur in forming
1t and their entertainments and other
mnuti8 remain unchanged.
1t is easy to take good prints with a little
box three and a half inches square by seven
and half long, containing a slip OF stout
glass; a small and good printers roller, a
collapsible tube filled with very fluid print
er's ink, book of blank paper, and phial
of benzole and some rags to clean the fingers.
A drop OF ink Is squeezed out of the tube on
the glass, and is spread very evenly and
very thinly over it by the roller. Then the
fingers are lightly pressed first on the ink-d
surface Of the glass and afterward on smooth
paper. Finally they are cleaned.
The photographers as class would be
well qualified to take finger prints neatly,
which they would know how to monnt art
istcally. They would also probably photo
graph the result. 1t Is easy for them to try
the process of finger printing A piece of
half-inch india rubber tubing stretched
over wooden cylinder is makeshift for
printers roller that is not to be despised,
and boiled or burnt linseed oil pTocurable
at the oiman's, and mixed with little fine
SCOT that has collected on plate held over
a candle, makes serviceable ink.
l look forward to 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 recruits for either ser
vice shall go through an analogous process;
when the index member of the hands shall
usually be inserted in advertisements for
persons who are lost or who cannot be
identified and when every youth who is
about TO leave his home for long residence
abroad shall obtain prints of his fingers at
the same time that the portrait is photo
praObed, for his friends to retain as n me-