The Washington herald., 1913-01-19
Identification Division of Bureau of Navigation Yearly
Apprehends Hundreds of Lawbreakers by
Recently Installed Method-RabuSta
Case an Example.

| tenn would be the best corrective foi
| this abuse. and he accordingly installed
| il in active operation on January 1
| 1907. Since that time about 2.0o0 fdenti
| ficationS of crooks and deserters have
been made through its use and the files OF
the Bureau of Navigation now contain in
the neighbOrhood of 125000 finger prints
of men who have been or are enlisted In
| the navy. By reference to these prints,
| listed in sectional cases under their diff
| ferent clasSifications, il is easy to dis
cover whether a man has previously been
| in the navy and If so, under what name
and with what record.
Tho system was primarily intended to
prevent deserters or criminals of all
classes from re-entering the navy and to
prevent innocent men being picked up by
detectives and delivered on board ships in
order to obtain the reward which the gov
ernment offers for the return of desert
ers. Numbers of cases have occurred
where the written, or even the Berttllon
description Of men corresponded almost
exactly, but 1t was afterward proved that
they were different men.
Under the finger print system there Is
no possibility for mistakes of this char
acter. In the past, an innocent man de-
hvered to the commandant of a naval
station had no redress if 1t were discov-
cred that he were not the man wanted,
but was simply released from confine-
ment.
Now, when a detective reports that he
has captured deserter, he is told to
send his finger prints to the Navy Depart
ment to be identified before delivering his
prisoner to the naval authorities. The
suspect is not confined by the military Of
cials in the meantime, and has a right to
demand redress from the civil authorities
for false imprisonment II the Bureau
of Navigation reports that he is not the
man wanted. This he could not have done
under the old order of things.
Identify Dead Men.
The record of the finger impressions Of
all Uncle Sans sailors has its other
practical uses, though. For instance,
three bluejackets were asphyxiated in
the Hotel Washington, Hoboken, N, J.,
in 1911 There was nothing on their
clothing to give clew to their identity
and the names under which they had
registered at the hotel were not to be
found on the roster of the navy Their
finger prints were taken by the local
police, however, and forwarded to Wash
ington, where it was found that the dead
men had been fremen on the U. s. S.
Tennessee. which had left port thesnight
the trio were asphyxiated. Had It not
been for the finger print clew it is doubt
full II the sailors ever would have been
identified, for they had only recently en-
listed, and were therefore not well
known to their associates or to the naval
authorities in the New Jersey port
Another similar case was that of a
man whose body was found floating in
North River, New York City, with the
fingers so shriveled by the cold water
thss taking their impressions was i'm
possible. An army surgeon. however,
injected a gelatinous fluid beneath the
cuticle in such a manner that the skin
wss distended as in life and the i'm
prints of the finger tips were sent to
Washington and there identified as those
Of a sailor recently discharged and paid
on with comparatively large sum. 1t
is presumed that he had been murdered
for this money and his body thrown into
the river. The face and torso had been
SO badly decomposed. however. that. had
1t not been for the finger prints, identi-
fcation would have been impossible. In
stead OF resting in the grave Of the un-