Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/395

Rh desire of bringing his work to the highest degree of efficiency, he has recently adopted a part of Galton's system, and places the impressions of certain of the finger-tips upon his identification-cards.

Unfortunately, I can not ascertain the exact date at which this adoption of Galton's system was made, but upon a fac-simile card, shown in a recent popular article on Bertillon's system (Leslie's Weekly, April 16, 1903), which is dated August, 1901, spaces appear below the words 'Pouce, Index, Medius, Annulaire' and are plainly intended for the reception of the corresponding finger-prints. Within a few weeks of the present writing there have appeared in various newspapers (e. g., Boston Herald) accounts of the employment in the State Prison at Auburn, K. Y., of imprints both of the fingers and of the entire palm, but I am unable to ascertain anything definite concerning the manner in which these prints are to be used. Mr. John ]Sr. Ross, the chief of the Bertillon department of the above-named prison, has kindly given me what information he can concerning the matter, but writes that it is 'an entirely new departure' and that 'directions as to its application have not yet been received by the Bertillon operators of the different penal institutions' (June 29, 1903). I am thus unable to say whether M. Bertillon has in mind the incorporation of any part of my system with those of himself and Mr. Galton, but I have furnished him with reprints of my two previous papers on the subject and have sent him also numerous manuscript notes and sample prints, which together present the essential points of the system as given in this paper.

Should this system of mine be found of value and permanently incorporated with the others, the 'Bertillon' system known in actual practice will be, like most other inventions of real value, a composite resulting from the independent investigations of several individuals working from different standpoints, and should be carefully distinguished from the real Bertillon system as described by him in his published work, and outlined above.