TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 769 



Belgium, and subsequently by Francis Galton, Roberts, and others in this 

 country — and its still more concrete application as an aid in administering justice 

 by methods perfected by Bertillon in France, are striking illustrations of the 

 practical utility of labours originally undertaken under the influence of devotion to 

 science pure and simple. 



The importance of being able to determine the identity of an individual under 

 whatever circumstances of disguise he may be presented for examination has, of 

 course, long been apparent to all who have had anything to do with the adminis- 

 tration of the criminal law, and rough and ready methods of recognition, de- 

 pending mainly upon the more or less acute faculty of perception and recollection 

 of differences and resemblances, possessed by the persons upon wiiom the duty of 

 identification has devolved, have long been in operation. The general conforma- 

 tion, height, form of features, and colour of complexion, hair, and eyes, have also 

 been noted. Much additional assistance has been obtained by the registration of 

 definite physical characteristics, the results either of natural conformation, or of 

 injury, such as mutilations, tattoo-marks, and scars, inflicted by accident or design. 

 The application of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the age, 

 photography, was eagerly seized upon as a remedy for the difficulties hitherto 

 met with in tracing personal identity, and enormous numbers of photographs 

 were taken of persons, the peculiarities of whose career led them to fall into the 

 hands of the police, and who were likely to be wanted again on some future 

 occasion. No doubt much help has been derived from this source, but also much 

 embarrassment. Even among photographic portraits of one's own personal 

 friends, taken under most favourable circumstances, and with no intention of 

 deception, we cannot often help exclaiming how unlike they are to the person 

 represented. With portraits of criminals, the varying expression of the face, 

 changes in the mode of wearing the hair and beard, diflerences of costume, the 

 effects of a long lapse of time, years perhaps passed in degradation and misery, 

 may make such alterations that recognition becomes a matter at least of un- 

 certainty. That photographs are extremely valuable as aids to identification, 

 when their true position in the process is recognised, cannot be doubted ; but as a 

 primary method they have been found to be quite inapplicable, owing partly to 

 the causes just indicated, but mainly to the difficulty, if not impossibility, of 

 classifying them. The enormous expenditure of time and trouble that must be 

 consumed in making the comparison between any suspected person and the 

 various portraits of the stock which accumulates in prison bureaus may be judged 

 of from the fact that, in Paris alone, upwards of 100,000 such portraits of persons 

 interesting to the police have been taken in a period of ten years. 



The primary desideratum in a system of identification is a ready means of 

 classifying the data upon which it is based. To accomplish this is the aim of the 

 Bertillon system. Exact measurements are taken between certain well-known 

 and fixed points of the bony framework of the body, which are known not to 

 change under different conditions of life. The length and breadth of the head, 

 the length of the middle finger, the length of the foot, and the length of the 

 forearm, are considered the best, though others are added for greater certainty, 

 as the height, span of arms, length of ear, colour of eyes, &c. All these par- 

 ticulars of every individual examined are recorded upon a card, and by dividing 

 each measurement into three classes, long, medium, and short, and by classifying 

 the various combinations thus obtained, the whole mass of cards, kept arranged 

 in drawers in the central bureau, is divided up into groups, each containing a 

 comparatively small number, and therefore quite easily dealt with. "When the 

 card of a new prisoner is brought in, a few minutes suffice to eliminate the 

 necessity of comparison with any but one small batch, which presents the special 

 combination. Then photographs and other means of recognition, as distinctive 

 marks and form of features, are brought into play, and identification becomes a 

 matter of certainty. On the other hand, if the combination of measurements upon 

 a new card does not coincide with any in the classed collection in the bureau, it is 

 known with absolute certainty that the individual being dealt with has never been 

 measured before. 



1894. 3 D 



