h thought hard, and at last got an idea. He broke a tag from
his boot-lace and began to skin the tips of his fingers until, as he
thought, every trace of a pattern by which he could be identified had
been obliterated.

Notwithstanding his bleeding hands, he smiled cheerfully when he was
reported for prison hospital treatment. The sequel affords a saddening
reflection on misplaced ingenuity and endurance. He had only penetrated
the outer skin, and it began to grow again.

They nursed his bandaged hands with infinite care, for a conclusion as
to his record had become obvious. And then officers took his prints
after all--and discovered that he was none other than Bill Brown, with a
criminal history to which an Old Bailey judge listened with unaffected
interest. Bill--or John--got his five years after all.

I have told this little story because it affords an excellent
illustration of the work of the finger-print department at Scotland
Yard--a department which serves not only the Metropolitan Police, but
every police force in the kingdom.

There is a great deal of confusion in the public mind between
Bertillonage and the finger-print system. Even responsible London
newspapers fell into the error, when M. Bertillon died, of ascribing to
him the invention of the system--with which he had nothing to do.

To many people has been ascribed the discovery that finger-prints are an
infallible method of identification. The knowledge however was of little
use till the inventive genius of one man worked out a simple method of
classification for police purposes, so that prints could be compared
almost instantly with those on record. That man was Sir Edward Henry,
long before he came to Scotland Yard, when he was in the Indian police
service.

The Henry system has almost entirely superseded the Bertillon system
throughout the world, and there is little doubt that it will ultimately
become universal. Thousands of criminals who would otherwise have
escaped a full measure of punishment for their misdeeds curse its
author. It is in this department that police science has been brought to
its highest pitch of perfection--a perfection begot of organisation.

Every prisoner for a month or longer nowadays has his prints taken a
little before he is discharged. These prints, if they are not already in
the records of Scotland Yard, are added to them, and a number gives the
key to the man's record in the Habitual Criminals Registry.

In this