xvii MEASUREMENT OF CRIMINALS 265 



of this Section, adopted by the General Committee at the 

 meeting at Edinburgh in 1892, to this effect: 



" That the Council be requested to draw the attention of 

 Her Majesty's Government to the Anthropometric Method for 

 the measurement of criminals, which is successfully in operation 

 in France, Austria, and other continental countries, and which 

 has been found effective in the identification of habitual 

 criminals, and consequently the prevention and repression 

 of crime." 



In consequence of these representations a Committee was 

 appointed on 21st October 1893 by Mr. Asquith, consisting 

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

 Inspector of Prisons, and Mr. Melville Leslie Macnaghten, 

 Chief Constable in the Metropolitan Police Force, with Mr. 

 H. B. Simpson, of the Home Office, as Secretary, " to inquire 

 (a) into the method of registering and identifying habitual 

 criminals now in use in England ; (6) into the ' Anthropo- 

 metric ' 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 ; 

 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 methods; 

 and, if so, what arrangements should be adopted for putting 

 them into practice, and what rules should be made under 

 Section 8 of the JPenal Servitude Act, 1891, for the photo- 

 graphing and measuring of prisoners." 



The Eeport of this Committee, with minutes of evidence 

 and appendices, was issued as a Parliamentary Blue-book in 

 March last, and not only contains a lucid and concise de- 

 scription of the methods of identification already in use in 

 this country, but also most striking testimony from impartial 

 but well -qualified persons to the value of a more scientific 

 mode of dealing with the subject. No pains seem to have 

 been spared to obtain, both by personal observation and by the 

 examination of competent witnesses, a thorough knowledge of 

 the advantages of the Bertillon system as practised in France, 

 and the result has been the recommendation of that system, 

 with certain modifications, for adoption in this country, with 



