The Origin of Finger-Printing Part 2

The conviction of the unchanging character of finger-patterns had, of course, grown on me only by degrees, as the evidence of time acc.u.mulated. Among my friends, from Nuddea days onwards, I often took second impressions, invariably drawing attention to their ident.i.ty with the former ones. I never came upon any sign of change, bar accident. But such comparisons were generally limited to intervals of no more than two or three years, owing to the frequent changes of residence incidental to Indian service. As time went on it was chiefly the incessant evidence of my own ten fingers, and of my whole hand, which wrought in me the overwhelming conviction that the lines on the skin persisted indefinitely.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Colonel J. Herschel, Sept. 22, 1877.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. F. Duthie, 1877.]

But besides my own evidence of eighteen years, I had that of my oldest college friend, William Waterfield, of almost as long. On March 31, 1877, he and Mr. (afterwards Sir Theodore) Hope and Mrs. Hope were my guests at Hooghly. I took all their impressions and my own on that day, noting on Waterfield's that we compared it with his earliest print of 1860, in Nuddea, seventeen years earlier. We found the agreement, of course, complete. Here are the facsimiles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: T. C. Hope, Bo.C.S., at Hooghly, 1877.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: W. Waterfield July 31, 1860, Nuddea.

March 31, 1877, Hooghly.]

If more evidence were required, I was prepared, without hesitation, to call on any person whose mark I had taken since I began. It was in fact from among those very persons, Natives as well as English, that thirteen years later, at Mr. Galton's request, I obtained the repeats which, by their much longer persistence then, went so far to prove his case to universal conviction.

I close this record with a comparison between three of my own prints, taken, one in 1859, one in 1877, and the last to-day, after fifty-seven years. For length of persistence they cannot at present be matched.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (_a_) (_b_) W. J. H., 1859, Arrah (aet. 26).

(_c_) W. J. H., March 31, 1877 (aet. 44).

(_d_) W. J. H., February 22, 1916 (aet. 83).]

It goes beyond the proper scope of this narrative, but I cannot refrain from offering my readers here a striking instance of the almost incredible persistency of atomic renovation that takes place in the pads of our fingers, in spite of their being more subject to wear than any other part of the body. The first was taken at the age of 7; the next, for Mr. Galton, nine years later. In 1913 my son was in Canada when I asked him to send me several repeats. Every print showed the minute tell-tale dot which Mr. Galton's sharp eye had noticed twenty-two years before. No doubt it was a natal mark. It has anyhow already persisted for thirty-two years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A. E. H. Herschel, r. 3.

1881, aet. 7.

1890, aet. 17.

1913, aet. 40.]

APPENDIX

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas Bewick his mark]

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 cla.s.sification of the markings on fingers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A _tep-sai_ of Bengal.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A finger-print.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOKEN-SIGNATURES OF THOSE WHO CANNOT WRITE OR READ, IN SEVERAL CASTES. YEAR 1865. DATE 8 FEBRUARY.

1. Cultivator; a harrow. 2. Barber; a mirror. 3. Shop-keeper; scales. 4. Carpenter; a chisel. 5. A Washerman's board. 6.

Female; a bracelet. 7. Widow; a spindle. 8. Caste uncertain; scissors. 9. Family Priest; an almanac roll.]

Bengal.

The common way for illiterates to sign is to wet the tip of one finger with ink from a pen, and then touch the doc.u.ment (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 princ.i.p.al 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):

Hooghly, The 21st Aug./77.

DEAR SIR,

I have examined the impressions made in these papers, and I think each can be distinguished from the others. There are also so many peculiarities in each impression that it cannot be forged, and I think it would be a preventive to forgery if all doc.u.ments, specially by females, or males who do not know to read or write, would contain impressions by fingers.

Yours faithfully, ESHAN CHUNDRA MITRA.

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: