Personal Identification and Description 149 



Inspector of Prisons, and Mr M. L. Macnaghten, Chief Constable of the 

 Metropolitan Police Force, to inquire (a) into the method of registering and 

 identifying habitual criminals now in use in England; (b) into the "Anthro- 

 pometric System" of classified registration and identification in use in France 

 and other countries; (c) into the suggested system of identification by means 

 of a record of finger-marks, and to report whether the anthropometric system 

 or the finger-mark system can with advantage be adopted in England either 

 in substitution for or to supplement the existing method. It will be seen 

 that the inquiry resulted from Galton's work of 1892 and earlier, and if the 

 evidence given be examined *, it will be found that the Committee were really 

 considering whether bertillonage, or what we may call galtonage in contra- 

 distinction, or a combination of the two should be adopted. Galton was the 

 only finger-print expert examined as a witness, and the Committee visited 

 his laboratory, saw finger-prints being taken, and the relative ease with 

 which Galton picked out from his cabinet the finger-prints of an individual, 

 whose prints were provided in duplicate. It is noteworthy that Galton, with 

 a foresight for possible difficulties, gives a very simple arrangement for a drawer 

 into which it is impossible to place a card which does not belong to that 

 drawer. It could be easily adapted to work for a finger-print index, but 

 Galton actually arranged it in his illustration on the basis of five bodily 

 measurements each grouped in three categories (see p. 81 and plate). There 

 are two other appendices by Galton, the first (p. 79) giving directions for 

 taking finger-prints, and the second for searching a cabinet of finger-prints 

 indexed by a simple form of bertillonage. When the Committee came to 

 report on the Finger-Print System (pp. 25 et seq.) it is of Galton and his work 

 alone that they speak. They write: 



"The second system on which we are specially directed to report is that now associated with 

 the name of Mr Francis Galton, F.R.S., though first suggested and to some extent applied 



practically by Sir William Herschel A visit to Mr Galton's laboratory is indispensable in 



order to appreciate the accuracy and clearness with which finger-prints can be taken and the 

 real simplicity of the method. We have during this inquiry paid several visits to Mr Galton's 

 laboratory ; he has given us every possible assistance in discussing the details of the method 

 and in further investigating certain points which seemed to us to require elucidation. He also 

 accompanied us with his assistant to Pentonville Prison and superintended the taking of the 

 finger-prints of more than a hundred prisoners.... The patterns and the ridges of which they 

 [finger-prints] are composed possess two qualities which adapt them in a singular way for use 

 in deciding questions of identity. In each individual they retain their peculiarities, as it would 

 appear, absolutely unchangeable throughout life, and in different individuals they show an 

 infinite variety of forms and peculiarities. 



"Both these qualities have formed the subject of special investigation by Mr Galton, and 

 having carefully examined his data, we think his conclusions may be entirely accepted." (p. 25.) 



The difficulty that arose in the minds of the Committee will be a familiar 

 one to students of the subject, namely the large classes formed by some 

 of the loop categories. Galton was not wholly prepared to meet this difficulty 

 of indexing, although he was already counting the ridges of loops, and dif- 

 ferentiating them in other ways by the nature of their cores. It was not till 



* Blue Booh (C. — 1763). Identification of Habitual Criminals Report, Minutes of Evidence 

 and Appendices. 



