Yours faithfully,
Eshan Chundra Mitra.
I value this letter highly, for Eshan Chundra was Government Pleader at Hooghly, and in frequent request in Calcutta. No native lawyer of his large practice could have written thus if he had ever known of this method of signature before.
Trustworthy information in my hands is to the effect that attestations by the finger in China are like Bengali tep-sais, and nothing more.
China.
The nearest approach to our use of finger-prints that I have found in China came to hand thus:
An Oxford friend, Mr. Bullock, subsequently elected Professor of Chinese, had been interpreter to the Legation in Peking. Talking with him about the methods of signing deeds in China, he told me that the finger-tip (not finger-print) method was in ordinary use, but he was careful to point out also that to his knowledge ever since he went to Peking, about 1868, Chinese bankers had been in the habit of impressing their thumbs on the notes they issued; and he had no doubt the custom was much older than that. This was startling, but he kindly procured for me the bank-note which I here show in facsimile; with it came this explanation of such thumb-marks, given by his friend in China:
'They are imprinted partly on the counterfoil and partly on the note itself, so that when presented its genuineness can be tested at once.'
That is, they play the part of what is technically called the 'scroll' in our cheques.
