Sir William Herschel has presented me with one of the two original "Contracts" in Bengali, dated 1858, which suggested to his mind the idea of using this method of identification. It was so difficult to obtain credence to the signatures of the natives, that he thought he would use the signature of the hand itself, chiefly with the intention of frightening the man who made it from afterwards denying his formal act; however, the impression proved so good that Sir W. Herschel became convinced that the same method might be further utilised. He finally introduced the use of finger prints in several departments at Hooghly in 1877, after seventeen years' experience of the value of the evidence they afforded. A too brief account of his work was given by him in _Nature_, xxiii. p. 23 (Nov. 25, 1880). He mentions there that he had been taking finger marks as sign-manuals for more than twenty years, and had introduced them for practical purposes in several ways in India with marked benefit. They rendered attempts to repudiate signatures quite hopeless. Finger prints were taken of Pensioners to prevent their personation by others after their death; they were used in the office for Registration of Deeds, and at a gaol where each prisoner had to sign with his finger. By comparing the prints of persons then living, with their prints taken twenty years previously, he considered he had proved that the lapse of at least that period made no change sufficient to affect the utility of the plan. He informs me that he submitted, in 1877, a report in semi-official form to the Inspector-General of Gaols, asking to be allowed to extend the process; but no result followed. In 1881, at the request of the Governor of the gaol at Greenwich (Sydney), he sent a description of the method, but no further steps appear to have been taken there. If the use of finger prints ever becomes of general importance, Sir William Herschel must be regarded as the first who devised a feasible method for regular use, and afterwards officially adopted it. His method of printing for those purposes will be found in the next chapter. CHAPTER III METHODS OF PRINTING It will be the aim of this chapter to show how to make really good and permanent impressions of the fingers. It is very easy to do so when the principles of the art are understood and practised, but difficult otherwise.