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.

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    the same or a different impression, and this settles the point at issue. In this way, during recent years, numerous cases of false personation have been detected and prosecuted to conviction, and the deterrent effect has been so marked as to justify the belief that the volume of work which the Courts have to cope with will be sensibly reduced in amount. In the Opium Department large advances are made on account to the cultivators through middle- men, the poppy crop being hypothecated as security. If the middleman or cultivator proves dishonest, the issue is raised whether particular sums reached the persons they were intended for. Formerly the cultivator could disown his mark or signature, or the middleman could put forward as the cultivator’s mark or signature one that had been fraudulently made ; but as the finger impression of the payee is now required to authenticate acknowledgment of receipt, a check has been introduced, the efficacy of which both cultivators and middlemen fully appreciate. The employer who makes advances to labourers, or pays them salaries, or enters into contracts with them, now protects himself by taking their finger prints on the receipt or agreement. All emigrants signing contracts under the Emigration Act are required to give the impression of their left thumb on the contract and on the registers. With large establishments, such as are employed by the Survey of India, this system is used to prevent the re-employment of undesirable persons whose services have been dispensed with. The thumb impressions
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