Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-11-28
THREE MURDERS AN HOUR.
One Murder Every Twenty Minutes.

mat Is the nightly record TOR the
United States.
Appalling figures of the last decade
show how the number of murders grew
II grew, seadily, almost every year.
until at present it has reached an annual
total of 10, 000-more than four times
that of England and Germany. One can
calculate with approximate accuracy the
number of murders that will happen at
certain seasons and at certain hours of
the day.
When you went to bed last night you
locked the front door and the back door.
Then you Sept peacefully until morn
ing. Yet during that period at least
eight American citizens We're murdered
in their homes, some probably in Their
beds, and Il to 10 others met a violent
death by pistol shot. knife or club. If
not only the United States, but all the
world We're to be considered, there can
be little doubt that at the very moment
you are reading this in the walls Of a
house or the streets of some city are
ringing with the pistol shot of an as
sass.n. And before you have read much
further some other murderer will have
accomplished his fell purpose in some
other portion of the globe.
IN l. fEilSoN oOl of -VU 10 W
DERED.
Ten Thousand murders a year for the
United States is u moderate estimate. 1t
includes only the actual reports of muir
de.s-not the many crimes that are
never reported. LI,doss not includes sup-t
posed suicides, the Killing of those who
have myster.ously disappeared or the
death OF hundreds OF ramps and others,
in regard to whom no one cares to in
qu:re.
Yet taking 1860 as a fair i
mean That one out Of every 200 adult
Americans is murdered. This seems an
incredible percentage, but computing
the average life of the American at 5S
to So years and the population at 10000
600 it is seen that 2,00Q, Geo persons die
annually in the United States of which
10000 is a 20Cth part.
Is A death record Of 1900, coo a year
means 5.479 deaths a day. 23S an hour,
or 3.S a minute. One death approximate
ly every 10 seconds. If murders pro
ceeded as regularly as death there WoQlo
therefore be one murder every so min
utes, but crimes are crowded into the
hours of the night, fully four-fifthS jof,
the murders being committed during the.
nine hours from s p. m. to 5 a. m.
ONE MURDER EACH 20 MINUTES
Taking the total number of murders
for the first six months Of 1900 (4,12S),
one finds that during the night hours
one murder was committed on an aver
age every 10 minutes and 3 econds. The
sun in its daily course sees every few
moments a death, but its setting is the
signal for the beginning of crime. It
| cipIr 1,oHinI Tho uractcrp hpriznp nf NaI,
England, and two hours later. with fatal
certainty. there is one, her another,
then a third murder. An hour after suns
set in Boston twilight settles over Gin.
%cinnati, and there, too, it is the signal
for the beginning of murders and as
saults. So also Omaha, Denver, and
finally Tacoma have their night of blood,
each beginning a little later han the
other, Zach coming as If by appointment.
One murder every 20 minutes of the
night is a conservative estimate
The census of 1890, the most reliable
record on hand, gives the number OF
prison inmates held for homicide at 1881,
many of whom had committed the crime
in previous years. The number of known
murders in the censu year was in the
vicinity Of 5000. 1t has been computed
at 1890. Absolutely accurate statistics
can probably never be had, and the
safest figures are generally obtained by
computation from prison records as
given in the census.
An investigation shows the number OF
murders for each year during the past
10 years, taking the figures from all
sources, and giving not simply the
number reported by telegraph to the
press. Even these figures, however, do
not include a large number of suspicious
suicides and infanticides. The murder
record. according to the figures. is as fol-
lows: 1890, 4,s7S: 1891, 6.119; 1892, 7.011;
1898, 6.9SS: 1894, 1925: 1895. II, 754; 1896,
s,s4S; 1898. 9.7S2; 1899, $3.50: 1900 (irst six
months), 4,72S.