256   MEMORIES OF MY LIFE

may have misled. This book contained a method of classification far in advance of what I had published before, and is in most essential points the same as that in present use in Scotland Yard.

Sir Edward, then Mr. Henry, when in office in India, came to my Laboratory to learn the fingerprint process, and he introduced it first into Bengal, and afterwards throughout India. The Bertillon system did not work at all well there, because measurements had to be taken at many different local centres where accuracy could not be guaranteed. Then Mr. Henry was dispatched to the Cape, where great difficulty had arisen about identification, and he introduced finger-prints there also. After this he was called to England, and soon selected to hold his present important post. From what I have seen during the few visits I have paid to Scotland Yard, the fingerprint system answers excellently, and can deal easily with many thousands of sets-certainly with twenty thousand.

I hardly know over how large a part of th& world this system is now in use to the exclusion of other methods. It is so in England, India, and Argentina. It is used in connection with measurements in Brazil, Egypt, and many other countries.

I t is necessary for its successful employment that the clerks at the central Bureau should be thoroughly acquainted with their work. There is much for them

to learn as to the uniform classification of many small groups of often recurring patterns, and in realising what is and what is not essential to identification. Certain changes in the print may wholly depend on the greater or less pressure of the finger. The