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A land that is yours and mine! An island mottled with green and gold, Ruled by a princess seven years old, And warded well by a warrior bold, A Knight of summers nine.

Pall Mall Magazine.

R. P. Gibbon.

THE FINGER PRINTS OF CRIME.*

What is the origin of the custom by which a man who executes an indenture touches with his finger the red wafer affixed at its end, and declares that he delivers the document "as his act and deed?" Such a practice is buried deep in the past of English law; perhaps Professor Maitland can explain it; but, at any rate, it seems to suggest that the idea of using the print of a finger as a test of identity and authenticity is not exclusively modern. For the first scientific inquiry into the subject we are indebted to Mr. Francis Galton, who was greatly helped to his conclusions by the materials collected by Sir William Hershel in his experimental use of the new methods in parts of Bengal. Mr. Galton's investigations established the all-important fact that the details of the ridges forming the pattern on any particular finger persist in the case of a given individual from infancy to extreme old age. Another equally important fact-viz., that no two persons have precisely the same finger-markings-is not perhaps capable of strict logical proof until the mystery of individuality is more fully explained; but every fresh impression that is taken and examined adds something to the cumulative evidence, and the objection that no universal affirmative is established by collecting a multitude of particular negatives, has in this instance

Classification and Uses of Finger Prints. By E. R. Henry, C.S.I. London: George Routledge &

Sons.

long since ceased to have any practical weight.

These two conditions of variety and persistence having been shown to be fulfilled, the time for a serious trial of the new method was come, and it was Mr. Henry who, as Inspector-General of Police in the Lower Provinces, persuaded the Government of India to adopt his system of identification by finger impression. The success of the new method is very remarkable; from the Police Department it is spreading to other branches of public activity where identification is a requirement difficult to fulfil. Thus, State pensioners are required to demonstrate their right to draw allowances by giving their finger-prints; documents require· this simple and effective countersign of authenticity before they can be admitted to public registration; the opium cultivator impresses his finger-mark on his receipt for a State loan; false personation at public examinations is checked by similar means; and in numerous other cases where the person named in a document must be identified with certainty, Mr. Henry's methods are proving equally effective. Finally, only a few months ago, the Indian Legislature has expressly provided that their codified law of evidence should be so amended as to admit without question the testimony of experts skilled in the deciphering of finger-prints. Of the practical utility of the new system, Mr. Henry's book

contains

several interesting illustrations. Thus, the Bengal Courts had before them in 1898 the crime of murder and robbery practised upon a teaplanter, who was found with his throat cut, and with his safe and despatch-box in confusion and rifled of their contents. Among others, an ex-servant, whom the murdered man had prosecuted to conviction for theft some time before, was suspected of the outrage, but there was no evidence of his presence on the spot at the time of the crime. The unknown murderer, however, in ransacking the despatch-box, had handled an almanack it contained, on the cover of which were two faint brown smudges. These were photographed and found to be prints of a human thumb, while chemical analysis showed the marks to have been made with mammalian blood. The thumbprints were compared with those of similar characteristics filed in the central office of the Bengal police and were found exactly to correspond with the suspected ex-servant's right thumb impression, taken when he was committed for the term of imprisonment which he had completed shortly before the crime. He was arrested and the chain of identification was then further strengthened by taking another impression. Mr. Henry reproduces the three prints, on the comparison of which the prisoner was convicted, together with a chart indicating the "characteristics" common to all three. There can be no more perfect example of mathematical exactitude applied to legal proof.

No one can examine this diagram without thinking of the ingenious M. Bertillon. If we compare the Indian plan of identification by finger-prints with the Bertillon method of anthropometry, on which side does the balance of advantage lie? The superiority of Mr. Henry's system seems indisputable. To begin with, it is infinitely simpler; the only instruments needed are a piece

of tin, some printer's ink, and a roller to roll the latter on the former. Any one, even a native police officer, can take legible finger prints, whereas anthropometry requires special training and a knowledge of the decimal scale. Even supposing M. Bertillon's instruments are available in the hands of persons competent to use them, there is still the further objection that the whole method is over-elaborate, and involves many independent chances of error. Either system can be so indexed as to make searching a reasonably rapid operation. But the greatest advantage which Mr. Henry can claim over M. Bertillon is this: a finger-print is an actual human document, the exact negative of an original, incapable of error so far as the record itself is concerned. Hence, though a mistake may be made in counting the number of ridges, such mistake can be corrected, even after the owner of the finger has disappeared, by recounting. But, under the Bertillon system of measurements, once a mistake is made it cannot afterwards be discovered or remedied without remeasurement of the individual who has vanished. Not only may the reading of the record be wrong, but the record itself may be defective, in which case no amount of care can provide a remedy. For these reasons Mr. Henry seems fully justifiled in urging that the Indian Government was well advised to desert anthropometry for finger-prints.

In England, of course, the police have no knowledge of either system. The Investigation Department keeps a photograph and a description of every criminal, and that is all. The worst of it is that from the very nature of the case we can never know how ludicrously unsatisfactory such a clumsy record must be, for no one can tell how often it happens that a prisoner who is really an old offender is treated as a novice in crime. But one day even England

will want something more scientific than a villainous photograph, accompanied by such words of wisdom as "whiskers sandy; no marks." And when that day at length comes, Mr. Henry's monograph will become a textbook for beginners. In the meantime, many others beside the professed criminologist will find Mr. Henry's charts a fascinating study, and will search their own finger tips to find whether they exhibit Arches, Loops, The Speaker.

Whorls, Central Pockets, Lateral Pockets, Twined Loops, or Accidentals. One would like to know whether the criminal mind tends to be associated with any particular type, and whether any signs of heredity in finger-patterns have yet been discovered; but the science is still so little emerged from the period of experiment that as yet it has not even been given a name. Some people, perhaps, would call it Dactylotypography.

S.

THE FUTURE OF THE SIX-SHILLING NOVEL.

The six-shilling novel has now existed riotously for some ten years, and, to the casual observer, its position would seem to be assured, impregnable. Yet the real fact is that those most concerned are profoundly dissatisfied with it. A publisher whose reputation for successful fiction is second to none in London said the other day that he was ready to try any experiment for a change, even to the length of issuing novels at thirty-one-and-six; and he was not talking facetiously. A famous authors' agent, commenting on this despairing remark, said that novels might be issued at thirty-one-and-six or at half-a-crown, but that, in any event, the six-shilling price was bound to be altered. A leading West End publisher, to whom we mentioned the matter, said, with the utmost calmness: "I think it would be a good thing, as regards many novels, to return to the thirty-one-and-six figure." "But surely," we urged, "such a change would destroy your business in novels so issued." "It would," he said; “and I should be delighted to have my business in certain novels destroyed absolutely. You must understand," he added, "that no one has any fault to

find with the present price of novels which sell well. It is the work of the new author, and of the author with a reputation but no circulation, that causes the trouble and the dissatisfaction. Such work, take it all round, results in a loss to the seller."

Here undoubtedly was truth. A suc cessful novel is satisfactory, whatever its price; and, therefore, It is satisfactory at six shillings. The bookseller makes his fourpence out of it, and it does not stick on his shelves. What the publisher makes out of it is known only to the publisher; but that he makes something considerable is proved by the extraordinary competition among publishers for successful and partially successful authors. Any one acquainted with the arcanum of a publisher's office, and especially any publisher's literary adviser, knows the ravenous appetite of publishers for successful authors. Let a man write a novel which sells only two thousand copies, and he will find half-a-dozen firms anxious to accept all risks and pay him from £75 to £100 on account of royalties upon delivery of the MS. of his next novel. Even if a novel sells but a thousand copies, thus

clearing its first edition, the author may in future choose his publisher from several, and obtain from £30 to £50 in advance on his next MS.

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It is the new author who fails to make a hit that is the cause of tears. In nine cases out of ten the publisher expects to lose on a first book, and he is not disappointed. He prints, say, seven hundred and fifty copies, and sells from two hundred to five hundred. If he sells five hundred he considers himself well out of the affair. As for the author, his receipts vary from nil up to £10-and this for something upon which he has probably lavished year's labor. The worst is that the sales of first books are steadily decreasing; they are from thirty to forty per cent. less to-day than they were six years ago. And so there is naturally disgust. The author is disgusted because his reward is so absurdly trifling; the publisher is disgusted because he is often at an actual monetary loss; and the bookseller is disgusted because he finds his shop encumbered with dead stock. The question may be asked: "Why are mediocre novels produced at all? No one wants them." But someone does want them. The author wants them, and the author will have them. It was assumed ten years ago that the abolition of the three-volume novel would mean the abolition of the mediocre new writer. But how blind an assumption! You cannot change nature by an edict of the libraries. Mediocrity is immortal; nothing can scotch it. Instead of being annihilated the mediocre new writer is more numerous than ever. "But," you say, "why does the publisher publish the fellow's stuff and why does the bookseller buy it?" Simply because hope springs eternal in the human breast, and because the supply of non-mediocre authors is unequal to the demand. The publisher is very human, and the bookseller scarcely less so. Every sparrow

that lights on their window-sill may prove to be the Arabian bird; and after the bitterness of a thousand disappointments they hope on, hope on, with a sublime and miraculous fortitude.

In the meantime the condition of affairs has distinctly worsened for author and publisher, and, perhaps, also for the bookseller. Who, then, has profited, since the public certainly reads more than ever? It is the libraries which have profited. They buy for four shillings that for which they formerly paid fifteen, but one does not perceive that they have reduced their subscription-rates. Silently but steadily money has been diverted from the pockets of the publishers and authors to the pockets of the libraries. In the old days nearly every three-volume novel cleared its expenses, and a new author could be fairly sure of a reasonable emolument. A number of blamelessly inane writers existed in comfort upon their modest share of so many thirty-one-and-sixpences. Then the fiat went forth, and without a cry these unfortunate persons sank beneath the waves of reform. That was nothingat least, it was nothing to literature. But it was not all. The public buy more novels now than they did, but the improvement in this respect has not by any means been sufficient to atone for that tremendous leakage into the pockets of the libraries. Now, as then, the average reader gets his novels from the library, and not from the bookseller. And the libraries pursue their golden path, purchasing as many, or as few, of a novel at six shillings as they did of a novel at thirty-one-andsix. The successful, the meritorious writers have suffered to some extent, and, as for the rest, they have suffered enormously.

It is useless to blame the libraries. The libraries occupy an empyrean in which remonstrances cannot be heard. There are two remedies, and it is these

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