Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/392

388 Belgium, Switzerland, the United States and the majority of the South American republics, but in at least some of these cases the governmental acceptance of the system does not mean an extensive practical use, a condition of affairs especially true in the United States, where the governmental acceptance means merely an official sanction and where each state, or even each municipality, may employ its own methods of recording and registering criminals, quite independently of its neighbors. In this country the main reliance is placed upon photographs and descriptions, sent to various police headquarters in the form of little handbills, and although one sees occasionally among the descriptive part of these a set of Bertillon measurements (without further designations), it is very doubtful if in cities of moderate size the police authorities have any definite idea of their significance, or possess the necessary instruments for obtaining these measurements and thus verifying the data furnished. In England the Bertillon system is extensively employed, although in a somewhat modified form, to which is appended, at present as a supplementary system, that of Galton, to be described below. On October 21, 1893, a departmental committee was appointed by the home secretary, the Hon. H. H. Asquith, to inquire into the various methods of identification of criminals, and an official report was presented by them on February 12, 1894, and published as a Bluebook (C. 7263). The recommendations embodied in this report, and adopted in full by the English government, were as follows (paraphrased):

With regard to that portion of the recommendation which concerns the Bertillon system the committee gave its unqualified approval to the use of the first five categories as given above, but felt that the further subdivisions (height, length of little finger and color of eyes) were rather unsatisfactory. As stated in the report:

The length of the little finger is closely correlated with the length of the middle finger; in most cases where the one is long, the other is long also. The height again is a very unsatisfactory measurement; it is subject to