Classification and uses of finger prints / by Sir E.R. Henry.

  • Edward Henry
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Classification and uses of finger prints / by Sir E.R. Henry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    109/168 (page 99)
    by one officer, and his work is tested by another, before they are filed in their respective collections and groups. If, through inattention or haste, the classifier makes a mistake, it will be detected by the testing officer ; and as, moreover, the whole Record, by instalments, is systematically examined from time to time with a view to detecting incorrect classifica- tion, the likelihood of errors escaping notice is extremely small. No Key, it will have been noticed, is used or is required. The data for classifying are so few and so simple that any person can carry them in his memory—method and accuracy only being needed. The staff at the Central Office, being picked out as men possessing aptitude for the work, by practice soon become experts in it. After the lapse of a year or two, the Central Office receive from police or Governor of a jail a slip, containing the finger prints of a man on trial for theft, who has given the name of William Jones, and other information concerning himself, which the inquiries locally made show to be false. Method of search.—On receipt of the slip one ■officer draws up the search form containing the full formula, viz. ^ ^ u, and makes over the slip and the search form to the searcher, who first verifies the correctness of the formula, and then proceeds to search. The type in all the impressions is unmistakable, so there can be no doubt as to the correctness of the Primary Classification number *!!. the subclassification § (~) of index and middle of the two hands is also obviously correct—but there