seat. They could be taken in connection with the school registration, either when first entering, or better yet at the age of twelve to fifteen. There can be no question as to legal right in compelling such records, since there is no serious objection to compulsory vaccination, a far more serious operation, and one incurring a slight indisposition and a permanent change in the system, the nature of which is as yet unknown.
Similar records could be taken by the various civil and religious institutions in which the identity of an individual is apt to be called in question. Banks could require an imprint of the left palm upon the inside cover of bank-books; business men could issue checks with a fac-simile engraving of the palm of their own left hand covering the face; insurance companies could keep a palm and sole list of their clients; the Geary law would be rendered a certainty if the certificate issued to each Chinaman bore, besides the photograph, a single palm print, and churches could file away palm and sole prints with their baptismal records.
In the words of Bertillon, the founder of anthropometric identification: "La constitution de la personnalité physique et de l'indéniable identité des individus arrivés à l'âge adulte répond, dans la société moderne, aux besoins les plus réels, aux services les plus variés. . . . En un mot, fixer la personnalité humaine, donner à chaque être humain une identité, une individualité certaine, durable, invariable, toujours reconnaissable et facilement démontrable, tel semble l'objet le plus large de la méthode nouvelle. "[1]
- ↑ 'Instructions signalétiques,' 1893, Introd., p. Ixxxiii.
