Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1893-06-09
Identifying by the F,nycrs.

The markings of the human hand have
= much more serious interest than that
which palmists give them. They provide
an infalliblc way of identifying persons.
Age and physical changes never alter the
lines of hand so that they are not
recognizable by experts. The expression
of the face changes more than the lines
of the hand. Thus if prints were taken
of the hands OF persons who once found
themselves in charge of Inspector Byrncs
there would never be any doubt about
them again. The ingenious distorturc:
of tho face which criminals practice
when photographed would avail then
nothing. In any case, the hand hal
more individuality than the face.
Some Of these facts are made clear BIZ
Mr.. Francis Cation in his recently pub.
lished book, "Finger Prints" He
shows, with the help of Illustrations, the
value of tingcr-tips as means of identl-
iicatioD. This system has been employed
and found effective in various countries,
but not in England. 1t is more convenient
than and is said to be as useful as the
French system of anthropomorphic
measurement.
Mr.. Cation has not exactly initiated,
but he has worked out in scientific detail
an important method of identification by
the print of the finger tips. It's founded
upon the fact, which he authenticates
and formulatcs in this very interesting
volume, that the finger prints of every
man, woman and child differ from those
maize by the fingers of all other human
beings. Moreover, the print made in
childhood never materially alters during
life. Get the class from which iurymen
are drawn to accept this proposition as
fact, establish general system of regis
tration founded thereon, and at once q
huge mass of ctiminality would be
checked, the alias of the burglar and the
picl1pocket would be no longer good
defense, and pseudonymous criminalltY
Except in literature) would become q
thing of the past. But will the average
jurymen bend his intelligence to tho
teachings of the scicntist2
A distinction must be made between
the markings aud "patterns" with which
this book deals, and the "lines' on the
hand upon which the professors of
palmistry found their soothsaying.
These latter marks are, of course,
merely crcascs in the skin indicating the
lines of II ost frequent ilcxure, aud they
indicate nothing more than this. To
profess to read the past history or the
future fate OF the owner of the lines from
their form and direction is, scientific
ally, about as great an imposture rs to
profess to read mans fate from tea
leaves or coffee grounds.
The idea of using finger prints in
systematic way rs II means of identiiica-
ton was not regularly employed till 1858,
the pioneer of the work being Sir
William lIcrschcl, then chief admins
traitor of the Hooghly district, in Ben
gal. The signatures, or alleged sigma
lures, of the natives were found by Sir
William to he, rs rule, so destitute of
authenticity that he substituted for them,
and with marked success, signature by
finger prints. 1t seems curious that
"Bertillonage," the method employed in
France for identifying criminals by an
elaborate system of measurements of the
body, should not have included identi-
fication by finger prints, the only bodily
marks which remain unchanged from
the cradle to the gravc.-Ncw York
World.