| Fore. | Middle. | Ring. | Totals. | Corrected Totals. | |||
| Father and son | 17 | 35 | 28 | 80 | 80 | } | 149 |
| " " daughter | 29 | 52 | 30 | (111) | 69 | ||
| Mother and son | 18 | 50 | 26 | 94 | 94 | } | 186 |
| " " daughter | 38 | 75 | 35 | (148) | 92 | ||
The entries in the first three columns are not comparable on equal terms, on account of the large difference between the numbers of the sons and daughters. This difference is easily remedied by multiplying the number of daughters by 136⁄219, that is by 0·621, as has been done in the fifth column headed Corrected Totals. It would appear from these figures, that the maternal influence is more powerful than the paternal in the proportion of 186 to 149, or as 5 to 4; but, as some of the details from which the totals are built up, vary rather widely, it is better for the present to reserve an opinion as to their trustworthiness.
CHAPTER XII
RACES AND CLASSES
The races whose finger prints I have studied in considerable numbers are English, pure Welsh, Hebrew, and Negro; also some Basques from Cambo in the French Pyrenees, twenty miles south-east of Bayonne. For the Welsh prints I am primarily indebted to the very obliging help of Mr. R. W. Atkinson, of Cardiff, who interested the masters of schools in purely Welsh-speaking mountainous districts on my behalf; for the Hebrew prints to Mr. Isidore Spielman, who introduced me to the great Hebrew schools in London, whose head-masters gave cordial assistance; and for the Negro prints to Sir George Taubman Goldie, Dep. Governor of the Royal Niger Co., who interested Dr Crosse on my behalf, from whom valuable sets of prints were received, together with particulars of the races of the men from whom they were made. As to the Basques, they were printed by myself.
It requires considerable patience and caution to arrive at trustworthy conclusions, but it may emphatically be said that there is no peculiar pattern which characterises persons of any of the above races. There is no particular pattern that is special to any one of them, which when met with enables us to assert, or even to suspect, the nationality of the person on whom it appeared. The only differences so far observed, are statistical, and cannot be determined except through patience and caution, and by discussing large groups.
I was misled at first by some accidental observations, and as it seemed reasonable to expect to find racial differences in finger marks, the inquiries were continued in varied ways until hard fact had made hope no longer justifiable.
After preliminary study, I handed over the collection of racial finger prints to Mr F. Howard Collins, who kindly undertook the labour of tabulating them in many ways, of which it will be only necessary to give an example. Thus, at one time attention was concentrated on a single finger and a single pattern, the most instructive instance being that of arches on the right fore-finger. They admit of being defined with sufficient clearness, having only one doubtful frontier of much importance, namely that at which they begin to break away into nascent-loops, etc. They also occur with considerable frequency on the fore-finger, so the results from a few hundred specimens ought to be fairly trustworthy. It mattered little in the inquiry, at what level the limit was drawn to separate arches from nascent-loops, so long as the same limit was observed in all races alike. Much pains were taken to secure uniformity of treatment, and Mr. Collins selected two limits, the one based on a strict and the other on a somewhat less strict interpretation of the term “arches,” but the latter was not so liberal as that which I had used myself in the earlier inquiries (see p. 114). His results showed no great difference in the proportionate frequency of arches in the different races, whichever limit was observed; the following table refers to the more liberal limit:—