The daily silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1903-1907, 1905-01-24
T
AN epidemic OF MuRDER.

AN EI ~
In view of The epidemic of murder that
has broken out in western Nevada a
symposium of comment on crime recently
compiled by McClure's magazine may not
be uninteresting to readers of the Silver
State. These statistics confirm the gen
eral impression regarding the rapid and
alarming increase of lawlessness in our
country, and it is pointed out that at
present there are four and one-half times
as many murders and homicides for each
million of people in the United States as
there were in 1881.
The indianapolis News says that there
has been something very like civil war IN
Chicago, shameful negro burning in
Georgia, labor riots in New York city
war on law and order in Colorado, .
touch of anarchy even in the army.
what does it all mean?' asks the News.
Are our people losing not merely their
respect for law, but their very sense of
what law means? Then the News says
that corporations, aided and abetted y
able lawyers, violate laws br evade them;
that the railroads in Indianapolis have
hardly made a pretense of complying with
the ordinances requiring flag men and
safety cuts; that the water company
gives sometimes pure and sometimes river
water. The News charges that one cause
for this deplorabIe condition is the total
indifference of the people" that hey do
not insist that the laws be enforced.
The New York World pointed to the
fact that a woman in Rochester, N. Y,
stabbed another woman to death, was
found not guilty and that this woman
was lionized by the jurors and plainly
made to feel herself a heroine in the pub
lie estimation
In his charge to the Grand Jury at
Montgomery, Ala, Judge Thomas uttered
strong warnings against the increase in
crime. He quoted figures to show that
the number of homicides in the United
States for three years was one-third
larger than either the total number of
people killed on the railroads in the same
period or the total loss in the wars in
South Africa.
In a recent publication Justice Brewer
of the United States Supreme court said
49, " - loI1xr1 s.-%fnal
criminals become holder and crime more
frequent. while in still further conse-
quence the people feel forced now and
then to take the law into their own
hands.
President Henry Hopkins of Williams
College, in a recent address, declared
that the prevalence of crime in this coun-
try is greater at the present time than
ever before and hat the foundations of
national honor are threatened.
The Pittsburg Gazette in it's issue of
November u said that since January /.
1903, twenty-six murders have been com
mitted within the city limits OF Pittsburg
and that the assassins of twelve of the
victims escaped the police. The Gazette
charged that in some instances the off,
GERS know who the slayers are.
The Chicago Daily News says that rob
berries are increasing In number in Chi.
cage and that h~ighwaymen are more bold
and more desperate than formerly; that
there has been a marked and significant
change In the character of these crimes
during recent years: where formerly a
fcotpad rarely resorted to violence save
as a means OF avoiding arrest, today the
robbers weapon is used to injure, MAIN
bility for many of the failures to en-
force law and administer justice upon the
political pull that protects the dive
keeper, and IT adds that the same villain
Gus nfiuenc hampers the administration
of justice and secures light sentences and
Bridewell pardons.
A San Francisco dispatch to the New
York Sun says that for a fortnight there
has been a robbery in San Francisco lor
every day and that since October IA, 1898,
ia murders, exclusive of Chinese killings,
have been committed in that city, while
no one has been sent to the gallows. This