urements and in recording and classifying the same, as compared with the printing and reading required by either the Galton system or by the one advocated in the present paper. A careful test of this has not yet been made, but when we consider the number of single acts involved in the making of the records required by each system, the conclusion is obvious. In identifying an individual by means of a previous record, the Bertillon system demands a complete remeasurement, while by the palm and sole system a mere glance at a single palm is often sufficient to establish the identity or the reverse. Ordinarily the difference of time may not be great, but in the stress of modern competition a slight disadvantage in this particular may be regarded as a relative defect.
5. A more serious defect, which is also brought out by comparison, is that the certainty of a Bertillon determination is not absolute, while that of a system which involves either the finger tips or any other considerable portion of the epidermic ridges of hand or foot is beyond question. This has been thoroughly proved statistically by Galton and morphologically and embryologically by a series of recent investigations in my laboratory.[1] The proof afforded by the study of duplicate or 'identical' twins, where the resemblance, though greater than it can be in any other two persons, is still not absolute, affords farther evidence of the same.[2] Galton says that a proved identity of finger prints "far transcends in trustworthiness any other evidence from any number of ordinary anthropometric data. By itself it is amply sufficient to convict. Bertillonage (i. e., the system of Bertillon) can rarely supply more than grounds for very strong suspicion; the method of finger prints affords certainty.[3]Although in the original system devised by him Bertillon confined his attention mainly to anthropometric measurements and rejected all use of epidermic marking of hand or foot as impracticable[4] in his capacity as chief of the Bureau of Identification and with the evident
- ↑ A report of these investigations will shortly be published. See note, p. 396.
- ↑ See Am. Journal of Anat., Vol. 1, No. 4, November, 1902.
- ↑ 'Finger Prints,' Macmillan. 1892, pp. 107-108.
- ↑ "Ainsi la solution du problème de l'identification judiciaire consistait moins dans la recherche de nouveaux éléments caracteristiques de l'individualité que dans la decouverte d'un moyen de classification. Certes, je ne conteste pas, pour no parler que du procédé chinois, que les arabesques filigranées que presente l'repiderme de la face anterieure du pouce ne soiont à la fois fixes chez le même sujet et extraordinairement variables d'un sujet à un autre; et que chaque individu ne possède là une espèce de sceau original et bien personnel. Malheuresement il est tout aussi indéniable, malgré les recherches ingenieuses poursuivies par M. Francis Galton, en Angleterre, que ces dessins ne presentent pas par eux-même des éléments de variabilité assez tranchés pour servir de 0 base à un repertoire de plusieurs centaines de mille cas." Bertillon. 'Instructions Signalétiques,' 1893, Introduction.
