Classification and uses of finger prints.

  • Henry, E. R. (Edward Richard), Sir, 1850-1931.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Classification and uses of finger prints. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Finger prints utilised in many branches of public business.—In India the employment of the new system has not been restricted to the Police Department, but has been introduced into all branches of public business, being particularly well suited to the requirements of a country where the mass of the people are uneducated, and where false personation is an evil which even the penalties provided by the penal laws are powerless to control. It is believed that, on the death of pensioners, friends or relations have personated them and have continued to draw allowances whicli should have lapsed with the death of the persons to whom they were originally granted. All military and all civil pensioners are now required to give their finger impressions, and this precaution is effective against fraud. The Courts have to deal with numerous contested cases in which transfers of pro- prietary or other rights, purporting to have been duly admitted in the presence of witnesses before a registrar of deeds, are repudiated, and evidence is adduced on either side, often of the most conflicting and indecisive nature, both parties not hesitating to rely upon suborned testimony. In the registration offices of the Province of Bengal, and now in all the Provinces of India, persons who, admitting execution, present documents for registration, are required to authenticate their signature or mark by affixing the impression of their left thumb both on the document and in a register kept for the purpose. Should an executant repudiate as not genuine a deed which purports to be a transfer by him of certain rights, the judicial officer can require the person repudiating to give