Dactylography, or, the study of finger-prints / by Henry Faulds.
- Faulds, Henry, 1843-1930.
- Date:
- [1912?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Dactylography, or, the study of finger-prints / by Henry Faulds. Source: Wellcome Collection.
111/142 page 101
![CHAPTER VIII PRACTICAL RESULTS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF DACTYLOGRAPHY Till quite recently the method of identifying prisoners was that of personal recognition, often very admirably carried out. One may readily conceive that a criminal officer, a Bow Street runner of the old school, or a modern detective, might acquire great acuteness in perceiving points of individual character in face, form, gait, speech, and manner ; and during the period of arrest, trial, and imprisonment there were many oppor- tunities of observing notable offenders. Nor is such a power to be despised at the present time. How helpful a little point might even be under skilful disguise occurred to my own mind in this way. When I saw the great Henry Irving in the part of Mephistopheles in Faust, a certain slight stiffness in the calves was assumed, by me, to be a very clever and subtle suggestion of the cloven hoofs which were supposed to aid the movements of that mediaeval personage. But the great actor walked other totally different parts in the same way, so that on the street, in any disguise, the notice of an acute detective might have been arrested. I am short- sighted, but can often recognize people at a distance too great to distinguish features, by some peculiarity of gait or gesture. In Taylor's Manual of Medical Jurisprudence [ed. of 1891, pp. 317, 318], there is a](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20444096_0111.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
