Finger Print Evidence

Abstract

BY the courtesy of authorities in Scotland Yard, I have just received duplicates of two enlarged photographs (on slightly different scales). These photographs were lately submitted in a court of law to prove the identity of a, the mark left on the window frame of a house after a burglary had been committed, with b, the impression of the left thumb of H. J., a criminal then released and at large, whose finger prints are preserved and classified in Scotland Yard. I wished to show the resemblance between a and b by the method described in my “Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints,” believing that to be the readiest way of explaining to a judge and jury the nature of the evidence about to be submitted to them. I send the results. The questions of the best mode of submitting evidence and of the amount of it that is reasonably required to carry conviction deserve early consideration, for we may have a great deal of it before long. It is as a contribution towards arriving at a conclusion that I send the enclosed. I should say that in the above-mentioned book, each pair of impressions was printed in triplicate and on a still larger scale than these. One of the three was untouched, the second had lines drawn like those in the figure, down the axes of the ridges, the third had the lines and numbers and nothing else, just as in the figure. The attention of the judge and jury could be easily directed by counsel to whatever pair of corresponding points he might desire, by reference to their common number on the chart. Without some such guidance it would be extremely difficult to do so, for persons unaccustomed to finger prints are bewildered by the maze of their lineations.