forger is an adventurous spirit and committed the crime on
impulse, and we could learn absolutely nothing more about him, we
would look in that Mecca of adventurers, South Africa, for him. In
fact, our first business is to learn what kind of a man he is, then
shut our eyes and guess which one of a few places he will fly to. The
guess often is so good that our men await him when the steamer lands
there. If not, we don't forget the sailing vessels."

CHAPTER X

THUMB-PRINTS NEVER FORGED

Thumb-Print Method of Identification Absolute--Now Brought to a High
State of Perfection--Will Eventually Be Used in All Banks--Certified
Checks and Also Drafts with Thumb-Print Signatures--Absolute Accuracy
of a Thumb-Print Identification Assured--A Thumb-Print in Wax on
Sealed Packages--Its Use an Advantage on Bankable Paper of All
Kinds--How Strangers Are Easily Identified--Bankers, Merchants and
Business Men Protected by This System--Full Particulars as to How
Thumb-Prints Are Made--Can be Printed by Anyone in a Few Minutes--How
and When to Place Your Thumb-Print on Bankable Paper--Finger-Prints as
Reliable as Thumb-Prints--Use to Which This System Could Be Put--Thumb
and Finger Tips Do Not Change From Birth to Death--Department of
Justice at Washington Has Established a Bureau of Criminal Registry
Using the Thumb-Print System--Thumb-Print System Said to Be a Chinese
Invention--Its Use Spreading Rapidly--How to Secure Thumb-Print
Impression Without Knowledge of Party--An Interesting and Valuable
Study.

How to detect the forger as one of the cleverest of operating criminals
has been solved by the "thumb-print" method of identification, now
spreading throughout the banks, business houses and public offices of
the world.

It is quite as interesting as the suggestion that through the same
thumb-print method in commercial and banking houses the forger is
likely to become a creature without occupation and chirographical means
of support. R.W. McClaughry, chief of the bureau of identification in
the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan., is one of the most expert in
the thumb-print method of identification in this country, having been
schooled at Scotland Yards in London, where the method first was
brought to its present state of perfection. Mr. McClaughry sees for the
system not only a great aid in preventing the forgeries of commercial
brigands but the easiest of all means for a person in a strange city to
identify himself as