The Origin of Finger-Printing

An account by a colonial administrator who began using impressions of fingers and hands to attest contracts and to identify individuals in Bengal, describing early experiments, practical cases, and numerous specimen prints taken over decades. The author emphasizes two central properties of the impressions—their strict individuality and persistent patterns—illustrates examples and repeats, and traces the method's progression from informal practice to public demonstration later in the decade. He also reviews scattered historical hints of analogous uses in earlier European and Chinese contexts and reflects on the technique's evidentiary and administrative potential without treating later technical developments in detail.