Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1904-12-06
NATION IN CRIME GRIP.
Figures Show Startling Increase in
Homicides in Recent Years.

Figures Show Startling Increase in
Homicides in Recent Years.
There are at present four and half
times as many murders mad homieides
for each million of people in the United
States as there We're in 1851
With this statement of fact, based
upon statistics, S. S. Mcclure, IN the
current number of McClure's Magazine,
makes a startling showing of the iE-
crease of lawlessness in this country. and
follows with singing criticism of the
reign of criminal oligarchy," of chroa-
ic infract;on of the law Is many classes
and CT general failure in the eaforce-
ment Of the statutes. to which causes
the condition is attributed. Comments
on the prevalence Of crime ana lawless-
ness, taken almost at random from rep,
resentatiye and serious newspaae and
from published statements OF judges and
citizens, form the supporting evidence.
Conditions in Chicago are strikinsly
set forth by comparisons with the Grim
inal records of the two lending cities of
Europe Londca, with an area Of 6SS
square miles and a population Of $780,
600, had twenty-four murders last year.
the murderers were all arrested except
in four cases, where they committed sui
eide.
Chicago, with less than one-third Of the
population and area covered by the Lon
don or metropolitan police, had lbs homi-
cides. In eighteen cases the murderers
were killed at the time of the erin or
committed suicide; four other cases We're
those Of officers who did the killing in
the performance of their duties, leaving
JOG cases for the police to work upon.
Out of that number thirty-four convic-
tons were secured, while in nineteen
cases no arrest was made, and in fifty
three cases arrests did not result in con-
viction. Only one man was hanged in
Chicago.
In Paris only fifteen murders or at
tempted murders We're committed in the
same period. More than eight times as
many murders in Chicago as in Paris, six
times as many as in London.
In the United States last year there
We're S,976 murders and homieides in n
population of about S0,000,000 In 1881,
when the population was 51,316000,
there were only ,266 crimes of this class.
The high record was reached in 1896,
when there were 10,654 murders and
homicides in a population of 70,000,000.
In 1899 conditions improved, but since
then they have steadily grown worse.
The loss of life through crime is made
more prominent when compared with ia
talities in war and on railroads. In three
years the homicides in the United States
numbered 81 1876. The British loss in
the Boer war was $4,000. In the same
period there were killed on railroads 21,-
SAT. These figures were given recently
in a charge to a grand jury by Judge
Thomas of Montgomery, Ala.
Violence attending labor troubles, the
burning of negroes, lawlessness in Colo
RADIO, riots and murders in New York are
referred to in detail, and the following
summary of conditions in a few locali-
ties is made:
Pittsburg reports twenty-six murders
between Jan. / and Nov. II last In
twelve cases there was no arrest.
In San Francisco since Oct. IA, 1898,
there have been ia murders, exclusive
of Chinese killings. No one has been
sent to the gallows, and in forty-seven
cases there has been no arrest.
In recent years there have been TWEEN
ty-eight assassinations in one county
(Breathitt) in Kentucky, the victims in
Guiding three women.
South Carolina had ODD homicides in
1908.
A Georgia judge recently declared
from the bench that more homicides were
committed in that State than in the
whole British empire There one per-
son in a hundred is convicted and pun
ished, while in England one in three is
made to suffer