JOHN SMITH--HIS MARK

Before the days of compulsory public schools, John Smith, if unable to sign his name to an important document, made a cross, and this was labeled "his mark." He could not be identified by it, but it served the official purpose. Signatures have lately become more common, but even these are not proof against fraud. A recent proposal has been made to require finger-print identifications on all certificates of birth, marriage, and death; thus making forgery or impersonation impossible, and separating the sheep from the goats.

Perhaps finger-print signatures are almost as ancient as those of the cross, plain and simple. Pirate stories abound with descriptions of contracts, signed in blood by solemn imprint of the fingertip--or, more often, of the "massive thumb". Tom Sawyer's famous compact has been an inspiration to many a romantic youth. And artists, from time immemorial, have used the finger-print as a personal signature on drawings and paintings. But in spite of so honorable an ancestry, the idea of compulsory finger-prints seems to be meeting with some opposition.

It is evident that the only certain way to prove a man has been buried is to have the imprint of his finger taken just before lowering his body into the grave. And this is a detail that it is useful to know, as mystery plays and popular novels inform us.

If birth certificates had always been stamped with the footprints of the newly-born-babe--its finger-prints being too minute--Buttercup's famous blunder would be impossible, and that favorite plot-device would be gratefully banished. If everyone securing marriage licenses were to be "printed", divorce charges could be proved with greater certainly, and the possibility of a woman's acquiring an escaped convict for a husband would be slightly lessened.

Yet men still object to the suggestion, on no other grounds, it seems, than that it is not absolutely necessary; or that it might add to governmental red tape. It is barely possible that their reticence may be laid to another cause. A recent article proposed the identification of cattle not by branding but by this same print-method: only in their case the impression was to be made with the snout. Man can hardly be blamed for fearing to fall in the same category.