NATURE 



569 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1896. 



THE BERTILLON SYSTEM OF IDENTl- 

 FICA TION 

 Sigiuiletic Insfructioiis, induiiinj^ the Theory and Practice 

 of Antliropometrical Icicntificaiion. By Alphonse 

 Bertillon. Translated from the latest French edition. 

 Edited under the supervision of Major R. \V. 

 McClaughry. Pp. xx + 260, and plates. (Chicago : 

 The Werner Company. London : Kegan Paul and 

 Co., Ltd., 1S96.) 



THERE is much that is both interesting and instruc- 

 tive in Major R. W. McClauyhry's translation of 

 Bertillon's last book of 1893 ! f^"' 't contains an account, 

 revised up to date, by M. Bertillon himself, of the system 

 as at present in work in Paris. Its contents may con- 

 veniently be diiided into three parts : firsts the anthro- 

 pometric definition of individuals, whereby what may be 

 called a natural tiame is given to each person measured, 

 based upon five principal measures (but there is some 

 want of definiteness about this), which can be classified 

 and looked for, just as a real name is classified and can 

 be looked for in an alphabetical directory. There are, 

 of course, many persons who have the same " natural " 

 names, just as there are many Smiths ; still, the know- 

 ledge that the name of a person is Smith, is a very im- 

 portant help to further differentiation. The second portion 

 is of a hybrid character, partly subserving the same 

 purpose as the first, to an extent and in a way that is 

 not clearly described, and partly as affording particulars 

 whereby it may be positively affirmed whether any, and, 

 if any, which, of all the " Smiths " is the right man. This 

 second portion includes photographs and the verbal de- 

 scriptions briefly worded or symbolised, of a great variety 

 of personal characteristics, as of forehead, nose, chin, hair, 

 eyes, ear, eye brows and lids, mouth, wrinkles, &c., and 

 finally of cicatrices and body-marks. It is not clearly 

 stated how much of all this is generally entered on a 

 prisoner's card ; but the total entries on the specimen 

 signaletic card (Plate 78) contains, as well as I can count 

 them, 12 measures, 58 separate details in a sort of short- 

 hand, and 193 facts concerning marks and scars, also 

 in shorthand, so that the whole of this extraordinarily 

 complex description, containing some separate 263 nota- 

 tions, packs into small space. The third portion somewhat 

 trenches on the second, as the second did upon the first. It 

 endeavours to show how a verbal portrait may be built 

 up out of specified materials. Let us say, for brevity — 

 forehead No. 3, nose No. 4, lips No. i, and so on, and 

 there you have the picture. It is, at all events, an 

 amusing game to try how far, with a box of specimens, 

 like a kindergarten box, a recognisable face might be 

 built up. I would suggest that toy manufacturers should 

 study this part of the book, and bring out a box in time 

 for the forthcoming Christmas parties. 



As said already, it is difficult to gather how far this 

 enormous amount of labour is bestowed upon each 

 prisoner ; in any case, the success of the Paris bureau is 

 certainly very great. It has the peculiar advantage of 

 being worked under special conditions, all prisoners being 

 taken to the same measuring-place, where numerous 

 clerks, under careful inspection, working day by day, 

 NO. 1407, VOL. 54] 



have acquired a remarkable degree of sureness and 

 deftness in their work. 



The modern French system of giving what is described 

 above as " natural names," differs from the modern 

 English in that it as yet attempts no classification by 

 finger-prints. In the English plan a primary subdivision 

 of the cards is made on the first of the above methods, 

 using five measures, and these subdivisions are themselves 

 to be subdivided by classifying the finger-prints. It is to be 

 regretted that the volume under review takes but scant 

 and imperfect notice of the now pretty widely-known 

 method of finger-prints, which in my own, perhaps pre- 

 judiced, opinion is far more efficient for classification, 

 and incomparably more so for final identification, than 

 the whole of the second of the above portions, while the 

 finger-prints are much more surely and quickly put upon 

 paper than they are. They afford, moreover, the only 

 means of surely identifying growing youths. It is true 

 that the prints of the thumb and three fingers of the 

 right-hand are at length introduced into M. Bertillon's 

 cards, as shown in the specimen (Plate 79^), but there 

 is a regrettable error in the date of the circular (p. 259) 

 drawing attention to the innovation. The date is entered 

 as 1884, and not as 1S94, as it should have been (see 

 note, p. 14), and conveys the idea that the use of finger- 

 prints in Paris is much older than it really is, and pre- 

 vious, instead of subsequent, to its use in England. 



The practical question arises as to how far the method 

 of M. Bertillon is suitable for adoption in its entirety, 

 or otherwise, in other countries than France. The 

 publishers of this volume state, in a preface, that it is in 

 use " to some extent " in about twenty prisons and seven 

 police departments in the United States. Mr. Bertillon 

 says: "The countries which at the present time have 

 officially adopted the system of anthropological identifica- 

 tion are the United States, Belgium, Switzerland, Prussia, 

 most of the Republics of South America, Tunis, British 

 India, Roumania," &c. 



I fear the words " to some extent " must be emphatically 

 applied to many of these, besides the United States. So 

 far as I can hear, the only Presidency in British India 

 that has officially taken up the system is Bengal, where 

 it has " to some extent " been on trial for some years 

 and with considerable success, under the condition of a 

 more laborious system of inspection than can easily be 

 maintained. I will quote what is doing there now from 

 the latest circular of Mr. E. R. Henry, Inspector-General 

 of Police, dated Calcutta, January 11, 1896. 



" The weaknesses of the anthropometric system are 

 well known. Notwithstanding the improvements intro- 

 duced, the error due to the personal equation of the 

 measurer cannot be wholly eliminated, and as hundreds 

 of measurers have to be employed, it is inevitable that 

 errors due to careless measuring and to incorrect reading 

 and description of results should occasionally occur. A 

 system based on finger impressions would be free from 

 these inherent defects of the anthropometric system, and 

 for its full and effective utilisation it would only be neces- 

 sary to take the impressions with the amount of care 

 needed to ensure that the prints are not blurred. It may 

 be added that a considerable gain as regards tmie would 

 result from the change of system, there being no difficulty 

 in taking the impressions of the fingers of half-a-dozen 

 persons in less than the time required to complete the 

 measurements of one." 



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