Daniel S. Coan, age 9, of Rochester, New York, for his question:

When were fingerprints first used to identify criminals?

Daniel hopes to become an FBI man. Andy hopes that he stays with these plans and succeeds. Learning about fingerprints is a step in the right direction. A fingerprint is somewhat like signing your name, because no two people on earth have exactly the same fingerprint patterns. Some say that the Chinese used fingerprints to identify people., thousands of years ago. Certainly the British used them in India to identify workmen who could not write their names. This was in about 1851.

In the 1880s, the London police started a bureau that used fingerprints to identify civilians. In 1891, Juan Vucetich of Argentina worked out an elaborate fingerprint system for work in criminology. Later this was simplified by E. R. Henry of England. In 1901, Henry's workable fingerprint system was adopted by the London police for identifying criminals.