THE FINGER PRINT SYSTEM.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3142, 11 February 1911, Page 2

THE FINGER PRINT SYSTEM.

AN APPARENT FAILURE

THE POSSIBILITY OF MISTAKE

The London “Daily Express” recently stated that at the trial of a man charged with loitering with intent to commit a felony finger prints were put into prove his identit- with one sentenced for an offence. The accused proved ho was in the army at the time when it was alleged he was serving the sentence, and he was discharged. The London paper, in the course of a comment on the case, says: — "For the firsttime since its adoption the finger-print method of identification has failed.”

The paragraph was brought Tinder the notice of-Inspector. Childs, in charge of the Sydney finger-print system of this State. He was emphatic in.'his refusal to. accept the- story of failure. “It is absolutely impossible that there can have been, a mistake,” he said ; “that is, as far as the prints are concerned. Just as there are not two men in the world exactly alike, and just as there are no two finger-prints exactly alike — not even the mints of the fingers of the same hand of the same man. ‘•lt has been worked out- that the chances of obtaining from different' men prints exactly alike are one in 64,000,000,000. This process of identification

is worked along scientific lines—there is no rule-of-thumb work in finger-print classification. We take terminal points as starting places for our notin,g of features and characters—of loops, arches, etc., —and we have counted as many as _ thirty-six ‘characters’ from one point. Not one of these characters might he shown in the course of a. hundred .immediately subsequent examinations of other prints. “The statement bv the English paper that the ‘failure’ it chronicles is the first is not quite correct. There was a ‘failure’ of much the sxme varietr in Capetown a. couple of years ago, when a man who gave the assumed name of ‘Vane Tempest’ was charged with an offence. Finger-prints were put in to show lie was identical with a man previously convicted, under another name, at Johannesburg. The Capetown magistrate did not consider the case submitted to him strong enough to warrant a conviction—though he had no doubt the finger-print was identical with that of the " 'rson before the court— and accused was discharged. One of the papers published a paragraph to the effect that the system had failed, as the finger-prints bv which the accused was identified were identical with those of a man who had been convicted at Johannesburg. They could not very well have'been different—for they were the same. Soon afterwards ‘Tempest’ was again in trouble, and he admitted the Johannesbui 1 " conviction, and his identitv.

“\Yc» have 22,G0T prints classified and pigeon holed here, and” At that moment an officer placed some papers on the table—“ Here is a case in> point. This man was arrested, on suspicion. These are finger-prints taken on the day cf his arrest, f iiev have been compared and we find ho is a person who lias been convicted previously of a minor offence. There is, of course, no proof of his guilt before us. All wo are certain of is that the owner of tin’s hand is identical with the owner of the cue from which we took a print eight years ago. "You may assure that the fingerprint system cannot be wrong— more than once in .sixty-four billion times.”