It is interesting now to read that “it was strongly represented to us by Chief-Inspector Neame and his officers, that there should be greater precision in the taking of descriptive marks, and that their distance from fixed points in the body should be measured and recorded.” Science is measurement, and it is highly creditable to the English police that this demand was now to come from them. Here is a specimen of the Register Form as applying to the Right Arm--one of the nine divisions of the body for this purpose. +-----+---+----------+-----------------------------+------+------+ |Name.|No.| Limb | TATTOO MARKS. |Moles |Other | | | |deficient,+------+-----+----+-----+-----+ or |Marks.| | | |malformed,|Anchor| Man |Ship|Heart|Other|Warts.| | | | | injured, | or | or | or | or |Marks| | | | | | or |Cross |Woman|Flag|Star | | | | | | |diseased. | | | | | | | | +-----+---+----------+------+-----+----+-----+-----+------+------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-----+---+----------+------+-----+----+-----+-----+------+------+ A “scar on the forehead” was so common a mark of the criminal class, that, unlike the brand of Cain, it had no distinguishing value. One curious point, which has surely escaped the notice of writers of detective stories, was that in Liverpool “special registers are kept of the maiden names of the wives and mothers of criminals, as it is found that in a large proportion of cases an offender, when he changes his name, takes either his wife’s or his mother’s.” It is curious that, in France, a criminal more readily gives his own name correctly than in this country, but the trustworthiness of the finger-print records is now slowly working to a similar frame of mind among English recidivists. Photographs had been taken, as they are now to some extent, and they are, indeed, often most useful. Certain “routes” were arranged, and the forms and photographs were sent round the circuit of police stations, so as to be returned within the usual week of remand. Remarks on these forms were not used as evidence, but were used for official guidance only. The word “photograph” seems now (1912) to comprehend the taking of finger-prints in the official method with ordinary printer’s ink.