1888.] 



on Personal Identification and Description. 



357 



suttler, hit upon the expedient of using his own thumb-mark to 

 serve the same purpose as the elaborate scroll engraved on blank 

 cheques — namely, to make the alteration of figures written on it im- 

 possible without detection. I possess copies of two of his cheques. 

 A San Francisco photographer, Mr. Tabor, made enlarged photographs 

 of the finger-marks of Chinese, and his proposal to employ them 

 as a means of identifying Chinese immigrants, seems to have been 

 seriously considered. I may say that I can obtain no verification of 

 a common statement that the method is in actual use in the prisons 

 of China. The thumb-mark has been used there as elsewhere in 

 attestation of deeds, such as a man might make an impression with a 

 common seal, not his own, and say, " This is my act and deed " ; but I 

 cannot hear of any elaborate system of finger-marks having ever been 

 employed in China for the identification of prisoners. It was, how- 

 ever, largely used in India, by Sir William Herschel, many years ago, 

 when he was an officer of the Bengal Civil Service. He found it to 

 be most successful in preventing personation, and in putting an end 

 to disputes about the authenticity of deeds. He described his method 

 fully in ' Nature,' in 1880 (vol. xxiii. p. 76), which should be referred 

 to ; also a paper by Mr. Faulds in the next volume. I may also 

 allude to articles in the American journal ' Science,' 1886 (vol. viii. 

 pp. 166 and 212). 



The question arises whether these finger-marks remain unaltered 

 throughout the life of the same person. In reply to this I am enabled 

 to submit a most interesting piece of evidence, which thus far is 



Fig. 9. 







Enlarged impressions of the fore and middle finger tips of the right hand of 

 Sir "William Herschel, made in the year 1860. 



