Registers of criminals are kept in all civilised countries, but in France they are indexed according to the method of M. Alphonse Bertillon, which admits of an effective search being made through a large collection. We shall see how much the differentiating power of the French or of any other system of indexing might be increased by including finger prints in the register. M. Bertillon has described his system in three pamphlets:-- (1) _Une application pratique de l'anthropometrie_, Extrait des Annales de Demographie Interne. Paris 1881. (2) _Les signalements anthropometriques_, Conference faite au Congres Penitentiare International de Rome, Nov. 22, 1885. (3) _Sur le fonctionnement du service des signalements_. All the above are published by Masson, 120 Boulevard St. Germain, Paris. To these must be added a very interesting but anonymous pamphlet, based on official documents, and which I have reason to know is authorised by M. Bertillon, namely, (4) _L'anthropometrie Judiciare en Paris, en 1889_: G. Stenheil, 2 Rue Casimir-Delavigne, Paris. Besides these a substantial volume is forthcoming, which may give a satisfactory solution to some present uncertainties. The scale on which the service is carried on, is very large. It was begun in 1883, and by the end of 1887 no less than 60,000 sets of measures were in hand, but thus far only about one half of the persons arrested in Paris were measured, owing to the insufficiency of the staff. Arrangements were then made for its further extension. There are from 100 to 150 prisoners sentenced each day by the Courts of Law in Paris to more than a few days' imprisonment, and every one of these is sent to the Depot for twenty-four hours. While there, they are now submitted to _Bertillonage_, a newly coined word that has already come into use. This is done in the forenoon, by three operators and three clerks; six officials in all. About half of the prisoners are old offenders, of whom a considerable proportion give their names correctly, as is rapidly verified by an alphabetically arranged catalogue of cards, each of which contains front and profile photographs, and measurements. The remainder are examined strictly; their bodily marks are recorded according to a terse system of a few letters, and they are variously measured. Each person occupies seven or eight minutes. They are then photographed. From sixty to seventy-five prisoners go through this complete process every forenoon. In the afternoon the officials are engaged in making numerous copies of each set of records, one of which is sent to Lyon, and another to Marseille, where there are similar establishments. They also classify the copies of records that are received from those towns and elsewhere in France, of which from seventy to one hundred arrive daily. Lastly, they search the Registers for duplicate sets of measures of those, whether in Paris or in the provinces,