642 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



required. The fact that both halves of the draft are in the hands of 

 the Si-ngan fu banker is legal proof for the transaction having been 

 closed. It is eas}- to see that this s^^stem is the natural offshoot of 

 the ancient taUies in wood and metal. In regard to criminal per- 

 secution we must remember that crime had never assumed vast pro- 

 portions in China, that detection and capture were comparatively 

 easy, and that anything like a criminal science was not required for 

 a patriarchal organization of government.^ These are the reasons 

 why the Chinese, though well acquainted with the character and 

 significance of fuiger prints, did not develop them into a system; 

 why they did not enter much into the speculations of their scholars, 

 and why the records concerning them are brief and sparse. 



The poet Su Shi (1036-1101) avails' liimself metaphorically of the 

 expression "the whorls (snails) on the fingers" in the verse: 



"Ngan, King of Ts'i, found on the bank of a river a fine stone 

 veined like fuiger marks." ^ 



During the Sung period (960-1278 A. D.) fmger prints were taken 

 in wax. This fact is reported by Wang Fu, the author of the 

 Po leu t'u lu, the well-known catalogue of ancient bronzes first pub- 

 lished in 1107 A. D. In chapter 6, p. 30, of this work, a bronze 

 wine-cup of the Chou period is illustrated, on one side of which four 

 large finger-shaped grooves appear, closely joined and looking like 

 the fingers of a hand. The author explains the presence of these 

 finger marks by saying that the ancients feared to drop such a vessel 

 from their hands and therefore held it with a firm grip of their fin- 

 gers in these grooves, "in order to indicate that they were careful to 

 observe the rules of propriety." "At the present time," Wang Fu 

 concludes, ''finger marks are reproduced by means of wax, and are 

 simply effected by pressing the fingers into wax." 



Kia Kung-3^en, an author of the T'ang period, who wrote about the 

 year 650 A. D., makes a distinct allusion to finger impressions 

 employed in his time for purposes of identification. He comments 

 on the wooden tallies used in ancient times (before the invention of 

 rag paper)— that is, a pair of wooden tablets on which the contract 

 was inscribed. Each of the contracting parties received such a 

 tablet, and notches were cut in the side of each tablet in identical 

 places so that the two documents could be matched and easil}^ verified. 



1 In Japan it is said the imprint of the left thumb (bo-in or bo-han) was formerly taken exclusively 

 from criminals (H. Sporry, Das Stempelwasen in Japan, Zurich, 1901, p. 16; comp. Globus, vol. 81, 1902, 

 p. 187). But from the way the matter is represented by tliLs author it does not clearly follow that the 

 desire of identification was the purpose of this method. A criminal, when ])laced in jail, was stripped of 

 his clothing and money , and liLs thumb impression was taken, whereby lie was deprived of his civil rights. 

 Durmg this term he was allowed to sign documents only with his thumb, also the record of his trial. A 

 verdict, even a capital sentence, had formerly to be signed by tlie defendant, with the thumb print. 

 These cases indicate that the thumb print was looked upon in Japan as an inferior sort of signature; the 

 criminal had lost his personality and name, and was therefore not allowed to use it as his signature. His 

 thumb print, which took the place of it, was not intended to establish his identity. 



» P'ei wen yiinfu, Ch. 20 B, p. 50. 



