In 1860 I was sent as Magistrate to Nuddea, nearer to Calcutta. The Indigo disturbances in the district had given rise to a great deal of violence, litigation, and fraud; forgery and perjury were rampant. The rent-rolls of the ryots put into Court by the Zemindars; the pottahs (agreements for rent) purporting to be issued by them to each ryot, put in by the latter; the kabooliyats (acceptances) purporting to be signed by the ryot, and tendered in evidence against him; all these documents were frequently worth no more than the paper on which they were written. In my own jail a notorious convict was found making clay seals of well-known landlords, and forging their signatures on pottahs smuggled into his hands. He was detected by the colour of the floor of his cell, where he kept his stock-in-trade buried. Things were so bad in this and other ways that the administration of Civil Justice had unusual difficulty in preserving its dignity. I was driven to take up finger-prints now with a definite object before me, and for three years continued taking a very large number from all sorts and conditions of men. I give here some selected impressions of friends taken in Nuddea during the years 1860, 1861, and 1862, in order of date, and names of some others. [Illustration: R. F. Hutchinson, June 1859, Medical Officer at Arrah Station.] 1860, July. Claude Brown, a prominent merchant of Calcutta, who was making a tour in the Indigo districts, and was at the time my guest. 1860, July 29. Captain H. Raban, Head of the Bengal Police, sent to Nuddea on account of its disturbed state; also my guest. He took extreme interest in the evidence of his own imprint. It was my habit, of course, to give duplicates of his 'mark' to every one of importance. [Illustration: Captain H. Raban, Head of the Police in Lower Bengal, July 29, 1860.] 1860, July 31. W. Waterfield, B.C.S., a college friend, afterwards Comptroller-General of the Treasuries of India. I have several 'repeats' of his; see especially p. 29. 1861, June 24. Ogilvie Temple, Judge of the Court of Small Causes, Kooshtea. 1862, April 13. At a gathering at my house at Kishnagar I had the good fortune to secure the prints of many other notables of the district. The Mahārājā of Nuddea. He was the highest of the old nobility of Bengal. He was much struck, as I was, by the remarkable symmetry of the 'pattern' on one of his fingers at the core. [Illustration: April 13, 1862. Mahārājā of Nuddea. Enlarged for the remarkable pattern] [Illustration: April 13, 1862. A. C. Howard. July 20, 1908. Sir Charles Howard.] Same day. E. Grey, B.C.S. A college friend, on my staff, afterwards Civil and Sessions Judge. He, I am happy to say, is still alive (1916), and his 'repeat' is quite good now.