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Show IDEA ORIGINATED IN ORIENT Finger-Print System Claimed to Have Been in Use in Far East for Many Years. The finger-print system that sleuths nil over the world have succes-i.'ully used In catching desperate criminals was the invention of orientals, either Chinese or Japanese, according to Tillipo de Fllippi, writing in Nature. The discovery was originally credited to Sir W. Herschel, in a parliamentary blue book, but Kumagusus Minakata, a Japanese, proved the case for the Enst. No one In the controversy quoted Rnshid-ud-din, who wrote about the system in use in Cathay even In his day. It was a finger-print system of a sort, although not like that in use today. There was no blackening of the hands prior to the taking of the impression, but rather the hand was placed on paper and traced by the person per-son taking the print. The hands of" contracting parties were alway? placed on deeds In those days. De Fillppi says that this .indent system Is worthy of investigation today, to-day, as study of the drawirs shows a distinct difference in the outlines of fingers of the hands of different individuals, in-dividuals, in the length of the fingers, the relative distance made by the nxis-of nxis-of tne thumb and the axis of the first finger, and in many other ways. |
