The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-06-13
THE USE OF FINGER PRINTS
SYSTEM SHOULD BE UNIVERSAL,
SAYS ARGENTINE EXPERT.

DIR. Vucetich Would Extend Its Use
TO Include Every Individual. Would
Prove Invaluable in Many Gases.
Every large city should have gres
central department of Identification
not merely for criminals, but for every
one of its inhabitants, in the opinion
of DR.. Juan Vucetich, chief Of the bu-
reaus of identification Of the province
of Buenos Aires and of the Argentine
war department. who is now In this
country.
DR.. Vucetich is the originator OF the
first complete system of finger PRINT
Identification, and he asserts that it is
his system, with notifications, which
is in use throughout the world today.
He says that even Bertillon, who APP
piled anthropometry to criminal iden-
tification, has adopted his system in
spite of the fact that Berdllon two
years after DR.. Vucetich had success
fully inaugurated his own system in
the city of La Plata, Argentina, said
that a system of finger print ident1h-
cation was improbable.
DR.. Vucetich asserted that the Amer
lean idea in regard to the system or
Identification was all wrong. We re-
gard it as stamping US as criminals to
have g complete Identification of our
selves In existence, ne said
He pointed out that the description
Of every citizen of Buenos Aires was
recorded on the government records
and that in the office of the minister of
war and the minister of the interior
there were on file 100000 identified
tons, which were used not necessarily
for criminal, but for military and poht-
ical purposes.
System of Identification.
II invented my system of identified
ton twenty-five years ago." said Or.
Vucetich in giving an outline Of his
life work. cat that time l was chief
of the bureau of identification in La
Plata, Argentina. 1t had been recon-
mended to me that l study the various
systems of identification in use and
adopt the best / discovered there was
no system IA existence but what was
deficient There arose instances to
which none would respond. What in
terested me most was Bertillon's an
thropometric system. | found 1t was
not sufficient. At that time maya
zine, the French Revue Scientihque,
fell into my hands. That was ON the
I'd Of May, 1891. 1t contained an ard-
Gle on 'Papillary Lines in the Hands,
in which the author went on to show
that these varied in different persons.
The article referred to some studies
Mr.. Cation of London had made, which
l believe went to prove that the differ
ences were due to hereditT. Cation
drew his conclusions from ,Ee use of
only the finger and the HI&@.0. I got
the idea Of applying the le%r to all the
fingers Of the hand.
II had many criminals at my dispo-
sition. 1 started in using printers ink
to get my impressions. Here added
DR.. Vucetich, producing a big card, lis
the first finger print Identification made
in the world. You see it is dated Sept
/, 1891 The first man so identified
was a prisoner in La Plata named
Francisco Carchulo. l kept up my ex-
perimenting until in 1897 was able to
announce that | had perfected my sys-
TEN. Previous to that time, however,
my finger prints had thousands of times
proved their efficiency.
First to Adopt IL.
"As early as 1903 1 was in communi-
cation with Lombroso, the celebrated
Italian criminologist, and he made ref
erence to my system in some OF his pa
pers. The Argentine government was
the first to adopt my system, and its
example was almost Immediately fol-
lowed by the other South American
countries. Since then almost every
country in the world has adopted 1t in
some form of other.
az am surprised and somewhat dis
appointed to find here that identhca-
ton seems to be regarded altogether
from the point of view of the criminal
that is to say, an Ordinary hdn up
pears to think it a disgrace to be on
record on an Identification card. If
your people could realize what an as
sistance this has been to us in Buenos
Aires in other than criminal matters,
you would clamor for 1t. understand
that your morgues are sometimes filed
with unidentified dead, and that I6s
infrequently bodies brought there are
never identified, but are buried In
potter's field. Perhaps more than
one of those mysterious disappear
ances, which l understand are fire.
quently chronicled in your newspapers,
might be explained if you had on hand
the means of Identification we possess
in Buenos Aires"