New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-02-14
Conduct and Misconduct of
His Office, as Revealed i'm
Many Tragic Episodes.

murders, known and unknown, actually COM
mitted in this city.
This OF course can never be ascertaned,
and perhaps it is just as we'll for what the late
Mayor Gaynor used to call the flair name OF
our city" that it can't. New York, in common
with the whole country, already bears an un-
cnviable reputation in the matter OF homicide,
with yearly average OF more than seven muir
ders to every 100000 Of her population as
against one to loo 900 in London. But even
such high murder rate constitutes for New
York prodigious bluff at responsibility, for
the simple reason that probably the great ma
jority OF her murders never become known as
SUCH but are entered on the records of the
Coroners' Office as deaths due to chronic
nephritis" or Chronic endocarditis" or "acute
myocardial insufficiency' or some other ia
vorite cause of sudden dissolution. 1t is only
tile obvious murders in New York that ever
provoke official cognizance.
In the year ending December 81, 1914, the
homicide bureau of the District Attorneys Of
fee recorded I6I homicides in Manhattan.
These we're divided as follows: Shootings, So;
Standings, 80; assaults ii. E., fatal beatings with
by automobiles, 6; blown up with bombs, 4;
strangulations, 3; criminal negligence, 8;
poisonings, 2. Now, when a man is shot or
stabbed or beaten to death or hit by an auto
mobile or blown up with bomb it doesn't as
a rule take an expert in crmnology to under
stand that a homicide has occurred In the
case OF a shooting to be sure, it often requires
expert examination to determine between
homicide and suicide pu: the occasion for an
examination OF The sort is usually perfectly
apparent ard its result conclusive. Strangula-
ton. however, is not SC easily distinguished
from natural DEATH and cases of poisoning
otter elude the most eminent pathologists. /:
will be noted that these latter two methods of
murder II purpose!y omit discussion of Grim
iral negligence" which, with automobile kill
ings. belongs more properly in the category of
accidental ieaths) were employed in only FIVE
of the ItI recorded cases of homicide, and yet
they are perfectly obvious methods OF making
away with ones fellow being. Does any one
believe that only two OF the inhabitants of
Manhattan Island were done to death through
poison in 1914 among the 5000 who died here
from Violence, through accident, suddenly or
many more than three of this number were
strangled2 The gun, the knife, the bludgeon
are the weapons of the crude, hot blooded
murderer. The more artistic and designing
assassin uses other means, among them the
silken moose and the various deadly poisons.
And unless we are wiling 70 credit New York
with being peculiarly free from this particular
species OF criminal we must confess that he
works his will with evident impunity in this
city Of ours.
The blame for this seeming inability on the
part of the community to uncover the subtler
forms Of murder lies with the Board of Coro-
hers and the system of which they form a part.
1t is case of setting a thirteenth century
agency 10 detecting twentieth century crimes.
The Office of Coroner originated in England
in the time OF the Pantagenets, when medical
science was in its infancy, if it can be said
actually to have emerged from the womb of
civilization. The Coroner assembled into his
court jury Of the neighbors of the dead man,
who presumably could supply him with infor-
nation regarding the causes Of death. But
to-day, with the growth Of population and the
development Of medical science, the Coroner's
jury represents helpless and ridiculous sur
vival They claim no acquaintance with the
deceased and not the remotest knowledge Of
pathology Their verdict is usually worth as
much as a laymsn's diagnosis of an obscure
disease
Furthermore, the Coroner himself, formerly
the representative of the King, chosen for life
(the Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench
was the principal Coroner of the realm), la
bors now under no legal qualifications for Of
Gee leonard IA Wallsfein COMM, = oner of