632 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



of Chicago have adopted finger prints in the case of foreign-born 

 customers who can not sign their names in English, and it is reported 

 that the scheme has worked out to perfect satisfaction. The cashier 

 of one of the large Chicago banks stated in an interview in the Chicago 

 Tribune of May 14, 1911: 



We have never had a complaint or error from this system. There are absolutely 

 no two thumbs alike, and the thumb-print mark is an absolute identification. We 

 have had complaints over signatures, but never over thumb prints. Men have 

 claimed that they did not sign withdrawal slips, but no one has ever denied his thumb 

 mark. 



It is well known that the honor of having developed the system 

 of finger prints and placing it on a scientific basis is due to Sir Francis 

 Galton, explorer and scientist, born at Birmingham, England, Feb- 

 ruary 16, 1822, and who died in London in January, 1911. The 

 results of his studies are contained in two books. Finger Prints 

 (London, 1892) and Finger Print Directories (London, 1895). * 

 The system is based on two observations — the \videly varying, indi- 

 vidual character of the finger marks (in Galton's words: "It is 

 probable that no two finger prints in the whole world are so alike 

 that an expert would fail to distinguish between them") and the 

 persistency of the form of the marks in the same individual from 

 childhood to old age. Galton comments on the latter point as 

 follows: 



As there is no sign, except in one case, of change during any of these four intervals 

 which together almost wholly cover the ordinary life of man (boyhood, early man- 

 hood, middle age, extreme old age), we are justified in inferring that between birth 

 and death there is absolutely no change in, say, 699 out of 700 of the numerous char- 

 acteristics of the markings of the fingers of the same person such as can be impressed 

 by him wherever it is desirable to do so. Neither can there be any change after 

 death up to the time when the skin perishes through decomposition: for example, 

 the marks on the fingers of many Egyptian mummies and on the paws of stuffed 

 monkeys still remain legible. Very good evidence and careful inquiry is thus seen 

 to justify the popular idea of the persistence of finger markings. There appear to 

 be no bodily characteristics .other than deep scars and tattoo marks comparable in 

 their persistence to these markings; at the same time they are out of all proportion 

 more numerous than any other measureable features. The dimensions of the limbs 

 and body alter in the course of growth and decay; the color, quantity, and quality 

 of the hair, the tint and quality of the skin, the number and set of the teeth, the expres- 

 sion of the features, the gestures, the handwriting, even the eye color, change after 

 many years. There seems no persistence in the visible parts of the body except in 

 these minute and hitherto disregarded ridges. 



The permanency of the finger marks certainly refers to the features 

 of the design, especially the character of the ridges, but not to their 

 measurements, which are subject to the same general changes asso- 

 ciated with the growth of the body. Galton himself admits his great 



1 Of later books on the subject, E . R. Henry, Classification and Uses of Finger Prints, 3d edition, London , 

 1905, may be specially mentioned. 



