identify himself as the lawful possessor of check, or note, or bank
draft which he may wish to turn into cash at a banker's window.

Thumb-print signatures will eventually be used in all banks as a means
of identification. It will be a sure preventative of forgery. For
instance: A maker of a check desiring to take a trip around the world
shall draw a check for the needed sum and, in the presence of the
cashier of his bank, place one thumb-print in ink somewhere in one
spot on the check--perhaps over the amount of the check as written in
figures. Thereupon the cashier of the bank will accept the check as
certified by his institution. With this paper in his possession the
drawer of the check may go from his home in New York to San Francisco,
a stranger to every person in the city. But at the window of any bank
in that city, presenting his certified check to a teller who has a
reading glass at his hand, the stranger may satisfy the most careful
of banks by a mere imprint of his thumb somewhere else upon the face
of the check.

With the ink thumb-print of the cashier of a bank placed on a bank
draft over his signature and over the written amount of the draft,
chemical papers and the dangers of "raising" or counterfeiting the
draft would have no further consideration. The thumb-print of the
secretary of the United States treasury, reproduced on the face of
greenback, silver certificate and bank note of any series would
discourage counterfeiting as nothing else ever has done.

But this thumb-print possibility in commercial papers has its greatest
future in the positive identification which either thumb or finger
print carries with it. Criminologists all over the world have
satisfied themselves of the absolute accuracy of the fingerprint