FINGER-PRINTS.*
THE swarming populousness of the earth certainly calls for our possession of some means of distinguishing our fellow- creatures one from another, and of such means we should have thought there was no lack. Mr. Galton, however, seems to think otherwise, and would apparently have us abandon all other points of difference in favour of the one to which he has devoted much labour for a great many years. At the present moment, our means of distinguishing are of a rough-and-ready kind. We differ from each other in face, form, and limb, and by these differences we know and are known by our friends ; we differ also in name—a difference which we have made for our- selves—and by this difference are distinguished by the world of those who know us not, or who have us not in sight; we diffe also in action and in handwriting, and by these are known to our correspondents or our bankers. It is true that all these aids to identification are liable to be found at fault in some special instance ; but such instances are very rare, except in romantic fiction, and are hardly worth taking into acoount. So rare are they, indeed, that in a population of over forty millions, cases of mistaken identity are looked upon as extraordinary events, and worthy of record. Rough-and-ready though they may be, our means of identification have served us well for the practical purposes of life, and we do not feel at all disposed to abandon them for the point of difference dis- covered by Mr. Galton. Mr. Galton's discovery practically amounts to this ; no two people make the same thumb- mark. We are quite willing to believe it, even though, to our unobservant eyes, all thumb-marks have hitherto appeared to possess an identical smudginess ; but we do not see how that knowledge is likely to advance us. We are not right, by-the-way, in speaking of Mr. Galton's discovery, as the writer admits that it was made before his time by a certain Dr. Purkenje, who, in the course of a thesis delivered at Breslau in 1823 for the purpose of obtaining a doctor's degree, and entitled a Commentatio de Examine Physiologico Systematis Cutanei, commented upon the curious arrange-
• Finger-Prints, By Francis Gialtoa, F.R.S. London Macsnilian and Oci.
merit of the minute furrows upon the finger-tips. Dr. Purkenje was, no doubt, somewhat at a loss to find a new subject whereon to discourse before his future colleagues, and so may easily be forgiven for his weighty treatment of so trivial a point; but we can hardly congratulate Mr.
Galton upon having devoted so much patient labour in following up the same inquiry.
One debt of gratitude, at any rate, we owe to the author. He successfully knocks the bottom out of all speculations and experiments in palmistry. The opening words of his intro- ductory chapter are worth quoting in this respect :—
" The palms of the hands and the soles of the feet are covered with two totally distinct classes of marks. The most conspicuous are the creases or folds of the skin, which interest the followers of palmistry, but which are no more significant to others than the creases in old clothes ; they show the lines of most frequent flexure, and no more. The least conspicuous marks, but the most numerous by far, are the so-called papillary ridges ; they form the subject of the present book. If they had only been twice as large as they are, they would have attracted general attention and been commented on from the earliest times."
We are glad that they are not twice as large, or we suppose the would-be fortune-teller and diviner would have seized upon them as well as upon " the lines of most frequent flexure " as a basis for his speculations. As it is, however, we do not quite understand how they are more important than the creases and the wrinkles. It
would be just as ridiculous to tell a man's character, or divine his future, from the wrinkles in his palms, as from the creases in his coat—that we willingly admit— but is it very much less ridiculous to attempt to find traces of race and temperament in the minute papillary ridges, even though they have, as Mr. Galton asserts, the "unique merit of retaining all their peculiarities unchanged throughout life " P And yet that is what the author appears to have once thought possible, on the score that so funda- mental and enduring a feature must in some way be corre- lated with temperament. His expectations, in this respect, were disappointed; but he was consoled by finding that finger- marks were indubitably hereditary, and that patterns were transmissible by descent. Considering that all our features are more or less hereditary and transmissible by descent, we should have been more surprised if he had discovered that the reverse was the case in respect to their more minute details. However, the author chiefly founds his claim for consideration upon the utility of his work, and it is with finger-marks as a means of identification that the greater part of his book is concerned. Everybody knows that the imprint of a dirty finger leaves a kind of
whirligig pattern upon paper—people who lend their books indiscriminately have often a chance of admiring the intrica- cies of this design—but there are few who have recognised that all these designs differ from each other in some minute points. By dint of the careful examination of some thousands
of these patterns magnified, Mr. Gallon. has been able to analyse them after a certain fashion, giving their component parts such names as " arches," " loops," and "whorls." These have again suffered sub-division, being classified under a great many heads, such as " forked arches," or "invaded loops," or "nascent duplex spiral whorls." By this means of classifica- tion he could, after examination of any particular finger-print, docket it according to its points under some form of heading, so that it might be registered. To this end he gives a most careful account of the best way of obtaining prints, and of classifying them. If only this system were adopted for prac- tical use, he thinks we should derive the greatest benefit from it as a sure me ans of identification,—in India, for instance, " where the features of the natives are distinguished with difficulty; where there is but little variety of surnames ; where there are strong motives for prevarication, especially con- nected with land-tenure and pensions, and a proverbial preva- lence of unveracity." Mr. Galton hardly does the wily
Hindoo justice. It may be true that he is capable of any amount of forgery, perjury, and impersonation ; but his in-
genuity is not likely to be baffled by the evidence of a thumb- mark. He fancies that the value of the system to honest men, even in civilised nations and in times of peace, as pro- viding a sure means of identification, would be equally great.
Surely a passport is a sufficiently troublesome thing to travel with, without its bearing our finger-marks for the further examination of dilatory officials. But it is in the identifica- tion of rogues, rather than of honest men, that the author
hopes to find the chief utility of his system. He compares it with what is called Bertillonage, the system of minute measure- ments invented by M. Alphonse Bertillon, and generally adopted by the French police ; and though he is willing to admit that the latter system is the best that is now in user he is convinced that his own would prove superior. Identity of measurements can rarely supply more than grounds for very strong suspicions : the method of finger-prints affords certainty; "by itself it is amply sufficient to convict." That is a matter of opinion, and our own opinion is not that of Mr. Galion. Take such a schemer, for example, as the one who laid claim to the Tiohborne Estates. Supposing that there had been in existence finger-prints of the missing baronet, and that the impostor's finger-marks had failed to resemble them. Would a British jury think that a sufficient reason for rejecting a cause which was espoused by thousands of re- spectable and unbiassed people, in spite of infinitely more cogent reasons for suspicion ? Or if the impress of the Claimant's finger-tips had coincided with those of a certain Arthur Orton, would it have been easy to convince the public that that was a sufficient reason for believing that the two men were one ? We hope that it would be difficult to. find a jury willing to convict upon such evidence. Moreover, although Mr. Gallon lays great stress upon the quality of "persistence " in these finger-patterns, he has not been able to bring forward much evidence to prove that there is no change in the course of growth ; nor has he considered at all the possible question of accidental or wilful disfigurement. The application of a red-hot iron to the tips of the fingers would not be so painful as to prevent a habitual criminal from resorting to that rough means of destroying or nullify- ing the record of his identity. Mr. Galton will hardly maintain that skin carefully seared in this manner would still preserve- intact and recognisable the intricacies of its minute pattern. Of course, we should learn to suspect every man whose finger-tips were burnt, of being a criminal; but we should not be able to ascertain which criminal he was.
If Mr. Galton's method were feasible, and possessed the merits which he claims for it, it is obvious that it would afford certain facilities to the police, as long as the criminal class was unaware of the use to which their finger-marks• were being put ; but the facility would only take the shape of a greater certainty in the descriptions which are entered in the police dossier of notable criminals, and it does not seem to us that it would be a difficult matter for the criminal, when set free, to destroy the corresponding record on his finger-tips. The system invented by M. Bertillon has, at least, the advan- tage of being based on records which are practically indestruc- tible : no man can alter the sizes and angles of his facial bones. However, Mr. Galton's work shows extreme thoroughness and industry, and it is possible that the facts which he has been at such pains to collect may prove of interest, and, perhaps, of use, to the physiologist.
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