as passed round the C.I.D.
to keep a bright look-out for him. Time went on. The finger, carefully
kept in spirits, remained at Scotland Yard.

Then one day a detective arrested a man for picking pockets near the
Elephant and Castle. One hand was bandaged, but the prisoner was
unwilling to say what was the matter with it. Soon the reason of his
reluctance was disclosed.

The Finger-print Department held his missing finger.

But if the Finger-print Department makes it hard for the guilty, it
often helps the innocent. Such a case as that of Adolph Beck would now
be impossible. There are two criminals alive to-day who are said to be
so much alike that the difference can only be told by their
finger-prints.

One hears often that the police will bolster each other up when a
mistake is made. That is, of course, preposterously false throughout the
service. There have been cases where police officers have been prepared,
quite honestly, to swear to a man as an old offender, and the department
has stepped in in time to prevent the error.

It should be understood that the fact of finger-prints being found at or
near the scene of a crime does not mean that they are of any use in
solving a mystery, unless facsimiles are in the records--that is to say,
a criminal has been convicted before. This rarely happens in the case of
murder, for the reason that a murderer is unlikely, in an official
sense, to be an habitual criminal. Of course, if a person is suspected
and arrested it is easy to compare his finger-prints with those found
where the crime was committed.

In the system the human liability to err is almost completely
eliminated. A prisoner's prints are registered automatically, and, to
prevent any chance of mistake, are examined and checked by a series of
officials, each of whom signs the record.

Nor do those engaged in this business have an idle time. Between 70,000
and 80,000 sets of prints are dealt with every year. The following list
shows the number of recognitions effected since the system came into
being at Scotland Yard. It must, of course, be remembered that they
have increased as the number of records has grown:--

1902 1,722
1903 3,642
1904 5,155
1905 6,186
1906 6,776
1907 7,701
1908 9,446
1909 9,960
1910 10,848
1911 10,400
1912 10,677
1913 10,607

That, in itself, is a record which justifies the faith now