Whatever reductions a legitimate criticism may make in the numerical results arrived at in this chapter, bearing in mind the occasional ambiguities pictured in Fig. 18, the broad fact remains, that a complete or nearly complete accordance between two prints of a single finger, and vastly more so between the prints of two or more fingers, affords evidence requiring no corroboration, that the persons from whom they were made are the same. Let it also be remembered, that this evidence is applicable not only to adults, but can establish the identity of the same person at any stage of his life between babyhood and old age, and for some time after his death.
We read of the dead body of Jezebel being devoured by the dogs of Jezreel, so that no man might say, “This is Jezebel,” and that the dogs left only her skull, the palms of her hands, and the soles of her feet; but the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet are the very remains by which a corpse might be most surely identified, if impressions of them, made during life, were available.
CHAPTER VIII
PECULIARITIES OF THE DIGITS
The data used in this chapter are the prints of 5000 different digits, namely, the ten digits of 500 different persons; each digit can thus be treated, both separately and in combination, in 500 cases. Five hundred cannot be called a large number, but it suffices for approximate results; the percentages that it yields may, for instance, be expected to be trustworthy, more often than not, within two units.
When preparing the tables for this chapter, I gave a more liberal interpretation to the word “Arch” than subsequently. At first, every pattern between a Forked-Arch and a Nascent-Loop ([Plate 7]) was rated as an Arch; afterwards they were rated as Loops.
The relative frequency of the three several classes in the 5000 digits was as follows:—