The finger-prints could be used also in all manner of documents filed
for record, such as deeds to lands, mortgages, leases, and the like.
Railroads could use it to prevent men once employed and discharged for
incompetency obtaining employment on another division, thus doing away
with inspectors. Each new employee's finger-prints could be kept in a
central office and classified. Any man attempting to obtain employment
again with the same railway, who had once been discharged for cause,
would immediately be detected, and a high standard of personnel thus
obtained.

Congress recently passed a law whereby the Bureau of Immigration is
permitted to tax each immigrant four dollars; this sum to be used in
detecting foreign criminals who come to this country; also to aid in
ascertaining whether foreigners who come here commit crimes and get
into prisons. If such are found they are to be deported. By the
finger-print system the prints of each foreigner could be taken at all
ports of entry. These could be kept on file in Washington, and from
time to time compared with those sent to the Bureau of Criminal
Registry in the Department of Justice building. Any foreigner located
in a prison could be ascertained, and upon the termination of his
sentence taken to some port and placed on board ship.

It has been demonstrated by experts that the ridges of finger tips do
not change from birth until death and decomposition. Scars made on the
finger tips remain throughout life, and are valuable for identification
purposes. Criminals try to evade identification by the system by
burning the tips of their digits with acid; but these are classified
under the head of disfigured fingers, and a lawbreaker cannot escape
detection. Even the removal of two, three, or four fingers or an entire