FINGER-PRINT SYSTEM LAUKEK. 639 



transfers the little one to the care of the matron. Every infant, is 

 subjected to a method by which its identity is permanently placed 

 on record. Sex and age are entered on a register. If the age can 

 not be made out — it may be inferred, for example, from the style 

 of clotliing vaiying from year to year — the time of the reception into 

 the asylum according to year, month, day, and hour is noted. Then 

 foUows a description of bodily quahties, including remarks on the 

 extremities, formation of the skuU, crowm of the head, birthmarks, 

 and design on the finger tips, for later identification. Emphasis is 

 laid on the latter, for each Chinese mother is familiar with the finger 

 marks of her new born, and as there is a high degree of probability 

 that a baby temporarily placed in the care of the asylum owing to 

 distressed circumstances of the family will be claimed at a later 

 time, this identification system is carefully kept up. Tlie Cliinese 

 seem to be acquainted with the essential characteristics of finger 

 marks. What in the technical language of our system is called 

 "arches" and "whorls" is styled by them lo "snail," and our 

 "loops" are designated H "sieve," "winnowing-basket." ^ The 

 former are popularly looked upon as foreboding of luck. 



Deeds of sale are sometimes signed with a finger print by the 

 negotiating party. We reproduce (pi. 1) such a document after Th. T. 

 Meadows ^ in preference to any other of recent date because this 

 deed, executed and dated in 1839, furnishes actual evidence of the 

 use of an individual finger im23ression in China before the system was 

 developed in Europe. The transaction in question is the disposal 

 of a plot of cultivated land for which a sum of 64 taels and 5 mace was 

 paid. The receipt of the full value of this amount is acknowledged 

 by the head of the family selling the land; in this case the mother nee 

 Ch'en whose finger print is headed by the words "Impression of the 

 finger of the mother nee Ch'en." It is evident that Mrs. Ch'en was 

 unable to write and affixed her finger print in lieu of her name. Sir 

 Francis Galton ^ comments on this finger print in the words: "The 

 impression, as it appears in the woodcut, is roundish in outline, and 

 was therefore made by the tip and not the bulb of the finger. Its 

 surface is somewhat mottled, but there is no trace of any ridges." 



1 A brief nomenclature pertaining to finger prints may here be given. The numbers in parentheses 

 refer to Giles' Chinese-English Dictionary (2d edition). Lo wSn (No. 7291, lit. net-pattern), "the impress 

 of a fmger, hand, or foot, dipped in ink and appended as a signature to any kind of deed or other legal instru- 

 ment." Chi yin (No. 13282, lit. finger-seal), "seal on deeds, etc., made by dipping the finger or hand in 

 ink and pressing it on paper." Hua kung (No. 67.32), "to sign one's deposition, usually by dipping the 

 thumb in ink and making an impression of it on the paper." Lien ki tou (No. 13133), "to verify the lines 

 on a man's fingers, in connection with the impression on a deed, etc." Further, c/ii7;io(No. 806G), "finger- 

 pattern" and hua ya {lit. to paint, i. e., to ink and press down) are expressions in the sense of our signature; 

 hua chi (No. 1791), "to make a finger print, as a signature"; chijCn (ibid.\ "to identify." 



2 I^and Tenure in China (Transactions of the China Branch oj the Royal Asiatic Society, Hongkong, 

 1848, p. 12). 



3 Finger Prints, London, 1892, p. 24. 



