Finger-print of the Mahārājā of Nuddea, April 13, 1862 13 Finger-print of Sir Charles Howard, Superintendent of Police, Nuddea, April 13, 1862; and repeat, 1908 13 Finger-print of Sir Alfred C. Lyall, 1877; and repeat, 1908 17 Finger-print of Captain A. Coleman, P. & O. SS. 'Mongolia', February 1877 17 Finger-prints of Bechā Rām Dās Adhikāri, (_a_) made in 1877, (_b_) made in 1892 21 Finger-print of W. F. Courthope, 1877; and repeat, 1913 27 Finger-print of Captain V. H. Haggard, R.N., 1877, aet. 2¾ years; and repeat, 1913. (_Collotype_) _Facing_ 27 Finger-print of Colonel J. Herschel, R.E., September 22, 1877 28 Finger-print of Dr. J. F. Duthie, September 22, 1877 28 Finger-print of Sir Theodore Hope, Bo.C.S., 1877 29 Finger-prints of William Waterfield, B.C.S., (_a_) July 31, 1860, (_b_) March 31, 1877 29 Finger-prints of W. J. Herschel, (_a_) June 1859, (_b_) July 1859, (_c_) March 31, 1877, (_d_) February 22, 1916 30 Finger-prints, enlarged, of A. E. H. Herschel: 1881, aet. 7¾; 1890, aet. 17; 1913, aet. 40 31 'Thomas Bewick his mark' 33 A 'tep-sai' of Bengal compared with a finger-print 35 Caste-marks of illiterates, 1865 36 Finger-mark on a Chinese Bank-note. (_Collotype_) _Facing_ 38 THE ORIGIN OF FINGER-PRINTING In 1858, after five years' service, as an Assistant under the old East India Company, in the interior of Bengal, I was in charge of my first subdivision, the head-quarters of which were then at Jungipoor, on the upper reaches of the Hooghly river. My executive and magisterial experience had by that time forced on me that distrust of all evidence tendered in Court which did so much to cloud our faith in the people around us. We cannot be too thankful that things have greatly improved in India in the last sixty years, but the time of which I am speaking was the very worst time of my life in this respect. I remember only too well writing in great despondency to one of the best and soberest-minded of my senior companions at Haileybury[1] about my despair of any good coming from orders and decisions based on such slippery facts, and the comfort I found in his sensible reply. [1] Till 1857 the East India Company's College.