4IO POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



seat. They could be taken in connection with the school registration, 

 either when first entering, or better yet at the age of twelve to fifteen. 

 There can be no question as to legal right in compelling such records, 

 since there is no serious objection to compulsory vaccination, a far 

 more serious operation, and one incurring a slight indisposition and a 

 permanent change in the system, the nature of which is as yet unknown. 



Similar records could be taken by the various civil and religious 

 institutions in which the identity of an individual is apt to be called 

 in question. Banks could require an imprint of the left palm upon 

 the inside cover of bank-books; business men could issue checks with 

 a fac-simile engraving of the palm of their own left hand covering the 

 face; insurance companies could keep a palm and sole list of their 

 clients; the Geary law would be rendered a certainty if the certificate 

 issued to each Chinaman bore, besides the photograph, a single palm 

 print, and churches could file away palm and sole prints with their 

 baptismal records. 



In the words of Bertillon, the founder of anthropometric identifi- 

 cation: "La constitution de la personnalite ph5'sique et de I'indeniable 

 identite des individus arrives a I'age adulte repond, dans la societe 

 moderne, aux besoins les plus reels, aux services les plus varies. . . . 

 En un mot, fixer la personnalite humaine, donner a chaque etre humain 

 une identite, une individualite certaine, durable, invariable, toujours 

 reconnaissable et facilement demontrable, tel semble I'objet le plus 

 large de la methode nouvelle. "* 



* ' Instructions signaletiques,' 1893, Introd., p. Ixxxiii. 



