148 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



theoretical grounds were that the gland, the ducts of which pierce the ridges, would multiply 

 with the growth of the hand, and it was not until the hands of the physiologist's own children 

 had been examined by him through a lens, that he would be convinced that the lineations on 

 a child's hand might be the same as when he grew up, but on a smaller scale. . . . 



"Dr Faulds in his present volume recapitulates his old grievance with no less bitterness than 

 formerly. He overstates the value of his own work, belittles that of others, and carps at evidence 

 recently given in criminal cases. His book is not only biased and imperfect, but unfortunately 

 it contains nothing new that is of value, so far as the writer of these remarks can judge, and 

 much of what Dr Faulds seems to consider new has long been forestalled. It is a pity that ho 

 did not avail himself of the opportunity of writing a book up to date, for he can write well, 

 and the photographic illustrations which his publisher has supplied are excellent." 



This is a long extract and the subject is a painful one, but it has to be 

 definitely asserted that it was to the experience of Sir Wm. Herschel and to the 

 laborious studies of Sir Francis Galton, and not to anything Dr Faulds wrote 

 or said, that we owe the adoption of finger-print identification for criminal 

 investigation at first in England and since then throughout the whole civilised 

 world*. There has been a tendency to obscure this great achievement of 

 Galton's not only by confusing finger-printing with bertillonage, which it 

 ultimately killed, but owing to Dr Faulds' continual attempts to monopolise 

 all credit for both the discovery and the practical application of finger-printing. 

 Like all arts it has developed in practice. But even as the credit for metal 

 bridges is not due to the man who suggested that bridges might be made of 

 metal, nor to those who changed cast iron to wrought iron or wrought iron 

 to steel bridges, but to the man who made the first metal bridge, and induced 

 people to walk over itf, so the credit for finger-print identification in criminal 

 matters is due to Herschel and Galton, or even as the former has generously 

 said — "the position into which the subject has now been lifted is there- 

 fore wholly due to Mr Galton" (see our p. 146). 



On October 21, 1893, Mr Asquith appointed a Committee { consisting of 

 Mr C. E. Troup of the Home Office, Chairman, Major Arthur Griffiths, 



* My Japanese friend, referred to in the footnote on p. 146, said very definitely, that while 

 the Japanese had resorted very early to finger-prints as personal sign-manuals, yet the Japanese 

 criminal investigation usage did not arise from this, but was imported de novo from Europe. 



f Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man. 



X The origin of this Committee is fully described in a letter of Galton to the Times, July 7, 

 1893. The British Association in its Edinburgh Meeting of the previous year had listened to a 

 paper by Manouvrier of Paris on bertillonage and another by Benedict on the modified system 

 used in Vienna. As a result a resolution was carried by the Council in the following terms : 



" Considering the need of a better system of identification than is now in use in the United Kingdom and 

 its Dependencies, whether for detecting deserters who apply for re-enlistment, or old offenders among those 

 accused of crime, or for the prevention of personation, more especially among the illiterate, the Council of the 

 British Association express their opinion that the anthropometric methods in use in France and elsewhere deserve 

 serious inquiry, as to their efficiency, the cost of their maintenance, the general utility, and the propriety of 

 introducing them, or any modification of them, into the Criminal Department of the Home Office, into the 

 liecruiting Departments of the Army and Navy, or into Indian or Colonial administration." 



Galton was not in Edinburgh nor responsible for the resolution but he was a member of the 

 Committee appointed in connection with it. It will be seen that the recommendation does not 

 go beyond bertillonage. Galton, as this letter to the Times amply demonstrates, at once pro- 

 ceeded to introduce the idea of finger-printing into the proposals for a better method of identi- 

 fication (see also Galton's letter, Nature, July 6, 1893, Vol. xlviii, p. 222), and four months later 

 when Mr Asquith appointed his departmental committee finger-printing was ab initio included 

 among the matters for examination. I know of no other reason but Galton's activities for its 

 inclusion in Mr Asquith's programme. 



