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Show ART TRACED BY MARK OF FINGER Print on Canvas Probably Will Decide Noted Controversy c i . Y JAK H. MOORE SPOCfal Compopdont or The stand-;J stand-;J arJ-i:xamliur. (Copyright. I92j, by Tno Standard. v. ... Kxamlner.) XEU yORjc, Dec i6. Nobody Is W itching with keener Interest the con-troyi con-troyi ray over the supposed Pa Vinci 1 ringer prints on the disputed 'La Vf.", "rr"n!"-e" painting than local offielals ol the International Bocletv for Personal Identification If the 1 400- ear-old finger print on the painting r.d by Mme. Aadree Halin corresponds with finger prints on other paintings of undisputed Da Incl origin, the New York attorneys attor-neys for Mme iiahn hope to win a1 damage suit for $300,000 hro..-ht against Sir .fosrph nuveen who east doubt on the authehth ity ot tha raint- ing. M.-anwhile Captain Grant Wll-lUfii?. Wll-lUfii?. vice pre Ident of the International Interna-tional Society for Personal Identlfi-cation, Identlfi-cation, polnt-d today to the fact that I finger prints much older even than Da Vinci's are still pettectlv clear and practical for identification purposes And us one resuJt of the dispute between be-tween Mm.- iiahn and Sir Joseph Du- i-en C-intnln 'illlr.. w... , , ... ........nic , (.. punue attention will he called to ringer printing as u nuuri3 of protecting property. The captain hopes, in fact that people peo-ple will place their linger prints on such tilings as watches, cameras, and bits of va.uablc jewel ry If an finger fin-ger printed articles are stolen they might be instantly Identified, even in the midst of a big pile of plun l-r made up of similar articles by comparing com-paring the fln'ir prints upon thorn with the finger print of the original owner. Captain Williams, by the wav. hOUld know of what he speaks. He was tormcrly head of the bureau of missing persons In the New York City police department, and widely known as a finger print expert. It was ho who reconstructed tho skull in the famous Lillian White murder cast last spring. PRINT OF .M I'M. MY. "In 30rt B. C. a woman was buried in a tomb at Thebes," said CnptatW Williams today. "I took the finder prints of ber mummified hands yesterday yes-terday and they are as distinct as on the day she died, over 2200 years ago ' The hand which was presented to me by an EgjrptolQSiel friend, huid shrunk somewhat through the process of mummification. It was still beautifully beau-tifully shaped. btwcer, with slender slen-der fingers. W'hen I took an Impression Impres-sion In plaster of those aristocratic finger tips tho marks were plain enough for any expert to read. "People will. I hope, begin to appreciate ap-preciate the tremendous Importance (if f!ni,'-r pr.nting as a result of this Haho-Duveen case. The aim of tho international society is helping the average citizen by recording his flr.ee r prints, not merely to tag the criminal by this method. It Is unfortunato In a May that finger printing was first used as a means of Identifying criminals, crim-inals, for Its other uses to the average av-erage law-abiding citizen are of even greater importance and aluc. VAJA Al l ! CLUES LOST. "The Kall-ltfilla murder case could have been solved within 24 hours If the cards and letters found with tho bodies bad not been smoared with I many people's finger prints beforo the detectives got possession of them. Tho boys who went down on tho Maine eould havo boon Identified If their fln-ger fln-ger prints had been taken when they 'wont Into tb- service and again after the disaster. "If a man is choked to death, we can find his slayer by means of finger fin-ger prints on his stiff whlto collar 1 a burglar touches a window pane with his hand, the finger prints remain unless rain or a strong wind Washes them away or dries them up for about 90 days. AVOIDING BABY MIXU. "Then- would bo almost no cases of unidentified among our citizens were linger prints used as they ought to be. Even If tho hands . and foot because footprints aro as good as handprints, were lost through accident, acci-dent, a body may be identified by comparing com-paring the texture of the skin from aomo other part with the previous finger prints. "No two finger prints are the same Every woman and man carries in tho hand a positfr means of identification, identifica-tion, both of the bod and the property prop-erty The recent tragic nilxup of babies ba-bies In a local hospital could never have happened, if. at birth, tho baby's footprints had been taken and recorded re-corded together with the mother's fingerprints. " nn |