Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1916-12-22
10000 FINGER PRINTS.
Bureau of Criminal Identification in
New York Is Much Enlarged-Clear
ing House of Whole Country.


Under the direction of Commissioner
Woods the work of the bureau of Grim
inal identification at police headquar-
tiers in New York city has been
greatly enlarged and brought up
to date. This Is especially true of the
finger print department, which today is
recognized by the police as the best and
surcst method of making criminal idcn-
tifcations. Although the Bertillon
system is still in use by the depart
ment, and will probably always have
its uses, it has to q great extent been
superseded by the fngcr-print system.
The department today has a collcc-
ton of more than 100000 finger i'm
prcssions OF different individuals. These
prints came from all over the United
States, Canada and from many Euro
pran cities. Commissioner Woods
some time ago sent notices to the po-
lice headquarters of every city in the
country suggesting that copies of their
finger prints be forwarded herr. Ina the
notices it was stated that the depart
ment possessed very large collection
Of records of criminals who could be
located only by means of finger prints,
that these came from all over the world
and that if its records were forwarded
the department would offer its finger
! print service to them without expense
! In many cases these notices were sent
TO the sherifis of what is popular
known as cone horse towns In thi.
manner the department S finger print
bureau has become a sort Of clearing
house for other police departments il
the countrr. The bureau is in charge
of Inspector Joseph y. Fauot. He l.
assisted in the work by Acting Detcc
tive Sergeant William NJ. Haley auo
five other men.
The impressions are classified oc
cording to "Whorls, loops "arch
cs' or "dcltas. The prints are care
fully filed and indcXcd according tt
in the basement of headquarters tn,
actual finger prints are taken. Printer :
ink is spread by a roller on the sur
face of glass table. This ink il
smearcd on tn fingers of the prisoner
and the finger impressions are theI
taken down on paper. All of the fin
gers of both hands OF the prisoner are
taken.
The police after exhaustive studies
have been able to learn much abou
finger prints. The system is based OF
the fact that every human being has
distinct and individual impression
which differs from that of any oth2l
person. 1t has been ably demonstrated
chat no two finger prints are alike
The police assert that there is not ever
a similarity between the prints oI
members of family. Twins who wer,
arrested, and were as physically alike
as the provcrbal two peas, had widely
different finger impr, s~ons. There i
. no racial similarity in finger prints
Those Of Il negro have the same char
actcriStic Of any other race. The
prints of Il manual laborcr are no diff
fercnt in whirs or loops from thoS'
of singer or artist, except that tn,
Impressions of the man whose fingers
are not callousrd from hard work whcl
taken down on paper are often as clca
as Il steel engraving. II is tn" opinion
of the men in tn" department : tngeI
print service that it would be imposSi
bic to read the character of persons
from their finger Impressions
"There is no way, one of then
said, "by looking ut a finger print i'm
preston of telling whether it is that OF
n boy, man or woman. The impress
sions of n man Of high order of intel
liCcncc are not charactcriStically diner
ent from those of Il man of low orde
of intelligence, In fact, there is II,
way we can tell from the rrint'
whether u man !. a pianist o. a Goa
passcr.