TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 771 



developments of Antbropology in recent times none appears to me more interesting 

 than the work done by Mr. Galton upon this subject ; for though, as indicated 

 above, he is not quite the tirst v?ho has looked into the question or shown its 

 practical application in personal identification, he has carried his work upon it far 

 beyond that of any of his predecessors, both in its practical application and into 

 regions of speculation unthought of by anyone else. Simple and insignificant as 

 in the eyes of all the world are the little ridges and furrows which mark the skin 

 of the under-surface of our fingers, existing in every man, woman, and child bom 

 into the world, they have been practically unnoticed by everyone until Mr. Galton 

 lias shown, by a detailed and persevering study of their peculiarities, that they are 

 full of significance, and amply repay the pains and time spent upon their study. It 

 is not to be supposed that all the knowledge that may be obtained from a minute 

 examination of them is yet by any means exhausted, but they have already given 

 important data for the study of such subjects as variation unaffected by natural or 

 any other known form of selection, and the difficult problems of heredity, in 

 addition to their being one of the most valuable means hitherto discovered of 

 fixing personal identity. 



As an example of the importance of some ready method to prove identity, apart 

 from its application to the detection, punishment, and prevention of crime, to which 

 I have already referred, I may recall to your recollection that remarkable trial 

 which agitated the length and breadth of the land rather more than twenty years 

 ago ; a trial which occupied so many months of the precious time of our most 

 eminent judges and counsel, and cost the country, as well as several innocent 

 persons — I am afraid to say how many — thousands of pounds, all upon an issue 

 which might have been settled in two minutes if Roger Tichborne, before starting 

 on his voyage, had but taken the trouble to imprint his thumb upon a piece of 

 blackened paper. It is wonderful to me, on reading again the reports of the trial, 

 to see how comparatively little attention was paid by counsel, judge, or jury, to the 

 extremely diflerent physical characteristics of the two persons claimed to be 

 identical, but which wei'e so strongly marked that they ought to have disposed of 

 the claim, without any hesitation, at the very opening of the case. It was not 

 until the 102nd day of the first trial that the attention of the jury was pointedly 

 called to the fact that it was known that Sir Roger Tichborne had been tattooed on 

 the left arm with a cross, anchor, and a heart, and that the Claimant exhibited no 

 such marks. When this was clearly brought out and proved, the case broke down 

 at once. The second trial for perjury occupied the court 188 days, the Lord 

 Chief Justice's charge alone lasting eight days. The issues were, however, more 

 complex than in the first trial, as it was not only necessary to prove that the 

 Claimant was not Tichborne, but also to show that he was someone else. I feel 

 convinced that at the present time the greater confidence that is reposed in the 

 methods of Anthropometry or close observance of physical characters, and in the 

 persistence of such characters through life, would have greatly simplified the whole 

 case ; and I would strongly recommend all who have nothing about their lives they 

 think it expedient to conceal to place themselves under the hands of Mr. Galton, 

 or one of his now numerous disciples, and get an accurate and unimpeachable 

 register of all those characteristics which will make loss of identity at any future 

 period a sheer impossibility. 



Partly with this object in view the Association has, for several years past, 

 during each of its meetings, opened, under the superintendence of Dr. Garson, an 

 Anthropometric Laboratory, on the plan of the admirable institution of the same 

 name which has been carried on in the South Kensington Museum since the 

 beginning of the year 1888, under the direction and at the sole cost of Mr. Francis 

 Galton, in which up to the present time more than 7,000 complete sets of measure- 

 ments have been made and recorded. The results obtained at the British Associa- 

 tion meetings have been published in the Annual Reports of the Association, 

 and, though on a smaller scale than Mr. Galton's, the operations of the laboratory 

 have been most useful in diffusing a knowledge of the value of anthropometric 

 work, and of the methods by which it is carried on. 



For many years an ' Anthropometric ' Committee of the Association, in which 



3d2 



