When I speak of the 'discovery' of finger-prints nigh sixty years ago, I should wish to be understood correctly. I cannot say that I thought of it as such until Mr. Galton examined old records in search of earlier notices of the subject. What he found had been beyond my ken, and I never inquired for myself. The fascination of experiments and the impelling object of them were all I cared about. Had it been otherwise I should have had an open field for egoism to any extent, for no one questioned the novelty of the thing.

The time that has elapsed since Galton's inquiries, without any material addition to his ascertained facts, justifies me, I venture to think, in speaking of my work as the 'discovery' of the value of finger-prints.

I proceed to show what has been brought to light from other sources.

Bewick.

Of modern cases the first known is that of Thomas Bewick. He was a wood-engraver, as well as an author, and had a fancy for engraving his finger-mark. He printed, as far as I can ascertain, only three specimens, by way of ornament to his books.

1. 1809. 'British Birds', p. 190. The impression of the finger appears as if obliterating a small scene of a cottage, trees, and a rider, but the paper between the lines of the finger is almost all clean.

2. 1818. The 'Receipt'; of which, by Mr. Quaritch's favour, I possess one. This is, beyond all possibility of doubt, quite free from any tooling. How it was transferred to paper in those days (of which there is an indication) I am unable to say, but for his purposes it was an original 'finger-print' of Thomas Bewick. Even the fine half-tone process of this facsimile cannot reproduce its delicacy.

3. 1826. Memorial Edition of Bewick's Works, 1885, on the last page of the last volume, under a letter dated 1826, in which he rates some one for copying his woodcuts. When I saw it at the British Museum some years ago I thought it showed toolwork.

These three seem to be all the specimens now available, and they are from three different fingers, of which two are certified to be his own.

Gathering that Mr. Quaritch was exceptionally familiar with Bewick's life, I told him that I wished to leave no stone unturned to do ample justice to him, if he was known to have done anything more than appears above. Mr. Quaritch took the matter up very kindly, and finally informed me that he had been unable to trace any writing of Bewick's concerning these prints. There seems, therefore, no evidence that he ever took impressions of any finger but his own. Now it is true that no one of observant habits, and least of all an engraver, could fail to perceive the peculiarities of his own finger. The brick-makers of Babylon and Egypt, and every printer since fingers were dirtied by printer's ink, must have noticed them. But it is a long step from that to a study of other men's marks, with a view to identification. What Bewick certainly did do might easily have led him to such a study, but it looks as if he was satisfied with recognizing his own mark.

Remembering, as I have already said, how one of his marks had struck my fancy as a boy, I am disposed to believe that, all unwittingly, I was guided to seize upon a thread which Bewick had let fall.

Purkinje.

Five years after Bewick, Johannes Purkinje, of Breslau, in 1823, read an essay which has been found and examined by Mr. Galton, and partly translated on p. 85 of his 1892 work. Purkinje carried his study of the patterns on fingers beyond all comparison with Bewick's use of them, of whose existence indeed he could hardly have been aware. He worked hard on them for a scientific (medical) purpose. It seemed to me strange that, going so far as he did, he had not hit upon our idea. To satisfy myself I read his work through in 1909. The very last sentence in it seemed to strike a light. Referring to 'the varieties of the tonsils, and especially of the papillae of the tongue, in different individuals' (no mention of fingers), he finishes the sentence and his essay by saying: 'from all which [varieties] sound materials will be furnished for that individual knowledge of the man which is of no less importance than a general knowledge of him is, especially in the practice of medicine.' A fine conclusion indeed, and a stimulating; but no part of his essay conveys an inkling of identification by means of any of the individual varieties on which he always lays stress, not even his pioneer work in the classification of the markings on fingers.

The common way for illiterates to sign is to wet the tip of one finger with ink from a pen, and then touch the document (leaving a small black blot) where we touch a wafer. The mark so made is called 'tep-sai', 'tep' meaning 'pressure' by touch or grip, and 'sai' meaning 'token' (I do not know the etymology). I ask my readers now to compare the 'tep-sai' with the 'finger-print' alongside it, and to say whether the tep-sai could afford any means of identification by comparison with another blot from the same finger. Illiterates who can hold a pen make a cross, as we do, called 'dhera-sai'; others, more ambitious, indicate their caste by symbols. For the interest of the thing I give some tracings from a collection of such caste-marks which I had made for this purpose when I was Magistrate of Midnapore in 1865.

When I was introducing actual registration I asked the principal member of my Bar to give me his opinion about the new marks. His answer was as follows (the English is of course his own):

I value this letter highly, for Eshan Chundra was Government Pleader at Hooghly, and in frequent request in Calcutta. No native lawyer of his large practice could have written thus if he had ever known of this method of signature before.

Trustworthy information in my hands is to the effect that attestations by the finger in China are like Bengali tep-sais, and nothing more.

China.

The nearest approach to our use of finger-prints that I have found in China came to hand thus:

An Oxford friend, Mr. Bullock, subsequently elected Professor of Chinese, had been interpreter to the Legation in Peking. Talking with him about the methods of signing deeds in China, he told me that the finger-tip (not finger-print) method was in ordinary use, but he was careful to point out also that to his knowledge ever since he went to Peking, about 1868, Chinese bankers had been in the habit of impressing their thumbs on the notes they issued; and he had no doubt the custom was much older than that. This was startling, but he kindly procured for me the bank-note which I here show in facsimile; with it came this explanation of such thumb-marks, given by his friend in China:

'They are imprinted partly on the counterfoil and partly on the note itself, so that when presented its genuineness can be tested at once.'

That is, they play the part of what is technically called the 'scroll' in our cheques.

My readers may accept it that the ink used was the same Indian ink with which the Chinese characters on the note were written. That is the unhesitating judgement of such an expert as Mr. Galton, who examined it. The difference between a water ink and printer's ink for identification is enormous. Blood on the fingers has occasionally left impressions that fortunately sufficed to reveal the murderer; but, as a rule, wet fingers leave only smudges as useless as this one. It is quite certain, therefore, that no one in the habit of impressing his thumb-mark as this banker did, would use water ink, if he depended on recognizing it as his own. In short, the smudge on the bank-note was placed there in order to identify the two parts of a piece of paper after severance, not to prove who placed it so. My readers may see what exquisite delicacy of detail can be obtained by printer's ink, when so desired, if they will examine a fine skin impression with a magnifying-glass; even the pores along the ridges can be seen as white dots. For practical purposes, however, such extreme delicacy as this is not needed.

This difference of ink suggests a further remark. The Chinese have used printer's ink for ages. If they aimed at identification they would surely have discovered its great value for clear impressions, and its use could never have died out. On the other hand, a method of identification depending on water ink could never have survived for such strict work as our finger-prints. On the palm of the hand it can give a fairly good impression for such simple identification as is wanted (say) for passports, because the large creases will obviously be those of the bearer of the passport, or as obviously not. These lines of the palm, so well known in palmistry, are as clear to a man as the shape of his hand, while those on the pads of his own fingers are scarcely noticed even now by one man in a million. The science of identification by means of the pads cannot, in my opinion, date farther back than 1858, when I happened to use oil-ink, which was not used for tep-sais.

The ablest defence of the claims of antiquity that I have seen is by a Japanese writer, Kumagusu Minakata, whose letter to 'Nature', Dec. 27, 1894, appears to be as exhaustive as it is able; but I hope that this paper will satisfy him that the finger-print system of our day has no connexion with the methods he describes. The 'nail-marks' of which he speaks must be utterly useless for identification; yet he treats all manner of impressions alike, and tells us indeed that they are all known by the one name of 'hand-mark'. I fear that he has failed, like some other writers,[9] to see the definite force of the word 'identification' in the finger-print system. It means that if a man can be indicated whose finger-print agrees with that on a document, he is identified with the man who put that one there. That is all we want. But it will be seen that there must be two impressions at least, that will bear comparison, to constitute 'identification'.

None of the writers who have undertaken the defence appears to perceive this need of a second impression if the issue of identity turns on any kind of finger-mark. Repudiations cannot have been rare; tribunals must occasionally have been invoked; yet no instance is quoted of decision by demand for a second impression.

It seems then that these marks were not made, as ours are, expressly to challenge comparison; that, in fact, they offer no points for comparison.

In conclusion, it is hard to believe that a system so practically useful as this could have been known in the great lands of the East for generations past, without arresting the notice of Western statesmen, merchants, travellers, and students. Yet the knowledge never reached us.

FINIS.