identification.

At the present time traveling salesmen, who spend much money and who
wish to carry as little as possible of cash with them, have an
organized system by which their bankable paper may be cashed at hotels
and business houses over the country. But with the thumb-print in use,
as it might be, such an organization would be unnecessary.

As between bank and bank, this use of the fingerprint in bank papers
of large face value is especially applicable. A draft for $100,000 or
$1,000,000 may be worth more consideration of the banks concerned than
the penmanship of signer and countersigner of the paper.

In the shipment of currency where there may be question of either
honesty or correctness in the persons sealing the package, a
thumb-print in wax will determine absolutely whether the wax has been
unbroken in transit, as well as establishing the identity of the
person putting on the first seal. As to the protective value of such a
thumb-seal, a case has been cited in which train robbers, discovering
a chance seal of the kind in wax of such a package, left that package
untouched when the express safe had been blown open; it was too
suggestive of danger to be risked.

In the ordinary usage of the thumb-print on bankable paper the city
bank having its country correspondents everywhere often is called upon
to cash a draft drawn by the country bank in favor of that bank's
customer, who may be a stranger in the city. The city bank desires to
accommodate the country correspondent as a first proposition. The
unidentified bearer of the draft in the city may have no acquaintance
able to identify him. If he presents the draft at the windows of the