Tattoo marks are not always so small or so restricted in character as they are found to be by the English police. In Knowledge of April, 1911, I had printed in colours a wonderful reproduction of a painting made for me in Japan, of a servant of mine, whose body was finely tattooed over its whole surface, barring face, hands, and feet, in different colours. It had cost him many years’ suffering and a small fortune in money to achieve, but he was rather proud of it. I have seen many such examples, though few so fine as a work of art. Extensive tattooing is also common among Italian criminals, the whole body being adorned.
Simple tattoo marks cannot be entirely effaced, but may be defaced; a simple design being made more complicated or altered so as to mislead entirely. A Leeds warder said in evidence before Mr. Asquith’s Committee, that: “Tattoo marks are sometimes defaced. I know one case where a person had a letter D on left breast; it is now made into ‘Mermaid.’ This is sometimes done to prevent recognition in prison. Sometimes the tattoo is removed, but a flesh mark of same shape left.”
Our Home Office was indisposed to move hastily in such a matter as finger-print evidence of identity suggested by Englishmen. Another system, very excellent in its way, had the immense advantage of being of foreign origin. As the result, however, of several years’ experience, some inherent defects in Mons. Bertillon’s anthropometric system—adopted in a modified form by our authorities in 1894—were brought into notice. It was found to be rather delicate for every-day practice, and the fine measurements taken officially often varied. In 1901 therefore, a fresh Committee, with Lord Belper as chairman, was appointed, but no report seems ever to have been published. Soon afterwards, in July, 1902, the Home Secretary directed the introduction of a system of identification based upon finger-prints only, in supersession of the French method of identifying by bodily measurements in a certain order. The results soon showed that the tardy decision had been immediately justified. There was greater certainty assured of valid identifications, the labour was much less, the expense was diminished, and a great danger of false identification was effectively removed.
That the system had taken root was soon evidenced by many newspaper paragraphs of subsequent date. Here is a bit of every-day evidence from a criminal case which resulted in conviction. It appeared in the columns of the Daily Chronicle, as far back as December 2nd, 1903. Many such cases were never reported at all. The witness, we are told, had “not the slightest shadow of a doubt that the finger-prints of Elliott were identical with those in the records of Scotland Yard. He might be considered an expert in the matter of finger-prints. Altogether he had dealt with about 500,000 cases of finger-prints.” To this report may be added a sentence from that of The Times, of the same date: “He had never known the finger-prints of different persons to agree.” The witness is significantly described as Detective-Sergeant Collins, of the Finger-Print Office, Scotland Yard. At a later date the same witness (now Inspector Collins), bearing evidence as to the Houndsditch murders, stated that they had now 170,000 different sets of prints recorded. He added that, “During the last ten years, since the introduction of the system in 1901, they had made upwards of 62,000 identifications and recognitions, and, so far as he knew, without error. They dealt, therefore, with pretty large numbers, and he was justified in saying that he had never found two impressions of different fingers to agree.” [The Daily Mail, February 25th, 1911.]
In The Daily Mail of August 10th, 1910, Inspector Munro, of the Finger-print Department of Scotland Yard, in giving evidence that an imprint on a broken window was that of the accused’s right middle finger, added: “There had never been any mistake yet in finger-print identification.”
One Cris Keegan, who received five years’ penal servitude at Dublin in June, 1910, had left a finger-print on a broken church window at Rathmichael. His counsel, pleading guilty for him, said: [The Daily Mail, June 10th, 1910] “That when, before the magistrates the accused supplied the best testimony to the finger-print system which it had yet received, by saying ‘The taking of these finger-prints is the greatest invention for the detection of criminals. I throw myself on the mercy of the court. I did visit the church.’ ” This poor man had been convicted forty times before.
Mr. William Henry, a witness in the case, who was in charge of the register for criminals in Dublin castle, said, “he had put through his hands about 150,000 finger-prints, and no two had ever been found alike. This system of identification had now superseded all other methods, and he regarded it as infallible.” Witness, having examined the prisoner’s fingers in the dock, then said, “the finger-print on the glass had been made by the prisoner’s right fore-finger.”
Criminals, dreading this kind of evidence, have of late taken sometimes to destroying their ridge-patterns on the fingers. They sometimes also remove and clean a window-pane which they have touched. In the early part of the fourteenth century, clerks in holy orders claimed what was called “benefit of clergy,” that is, the privilege of being tried for certain crimes by ecclesiastical courts only, a privilege which was afterwards extended to all persons who could read—for reading was a somewhat rare accomplishment in those merry old times. In 1487 this benefit was restricted, so that a mere layman who was able to read could secure it only once, and then he was to be branded on the thumb, to show that he had already enjoyed his one opportunity, thus carefully obliterating by legal methods the best means of proving the fact.
A Leeds man, charged with burglary, was stated in The Daily Mail of April 14th, 1908, to have destroyed every one of his finger-ends so that his prints could not be taken. He had been convicted several times before, and had been sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.