Meade County news., 1917-01-25
MURDERS MULTIPLY
Homicides Have Increased 200
Per Cent in 20 Years, Says
Warden C0dding.
SOME STARTLING STATISTICS
Only Two Per Cent of Slayers Are
Detected and Punished, Peniten-
tiary Official Says.

IL you i've long enough you may
be murdered and the odds are to
that your slayer will go unpun-
ished.
If you come to a violent death, the
chances are about 100 to 1 that it will
be at the hand of some depraved, city
reared youth, pampered and overin-
dulged by parent who failed to teach
his offspring sobriety, industry, obedi-
ence and bodily as well as mental ex-
ercise.
Hypothetical, of course, but based
upon actual statistics given by ]. X.
Codding, warden of the Kansas peni-
tertiary, discussing his work before a
group of business men at lola re-
Gently
"The crime of murder has increased
200 per cent in the past twenty years
and the proportion was 118 to every
million of population" he said. Fur
thermore, the law detects and pun
ishes only per cent of the murderers
and the larger number of them are un-
der 80 years of age. Practically all
of the convicts received at the peni-
tertiary are from the city or were
reared in the larger towns"
The responsibility for this condition
of affairs is placed by Warden Codding
upon the shoulders of the city father
who is too busy to pay any attention
to his son, to say nothing of providing
the proper environment and training.
Few athletes are received at the
Kansas prison. The healthy, normal
mind does not conceive crime. 1t is
the physically and mentally deficient
person who is most likely to commit
an offense he declared
Fifty per cent of the men in the Kan
sas prison were idle when they COM
mitted crime. Sixty-eight per cent are
men under 80 years old and 27 out of
every 100 land there because of drink.
Only one man in ten ever had an ap-
preciable amount of training, so per
cent are physically defective and four
out of ten are mentally deficient.
X X X
Coal Oil Kills Cow.-A COW belong
ing to DR.. E. w. Emery, an Atchison
dentist, drank four gallons of coal oil
and died the next day. There was an
ample supply of water in the lot, but
the cow seemed to prefer coal oil.
X 4 X
Treacherous Ice Causes Drowning
Warren Cunningham, aged 20, was
drowned in the Neosho river near Neo-
sho Falls the other day while trying
to cross the ice.
X X X
Crushed by Brick KiIn.-Three
men were killed and three others in
jured when brick kiln, which they
were topping out, gave way, and they
were buried under an avalanche of
brick at Buffalo the other day.
X X
Jail Bonds Void?-The $112,000
bonds issued to pay for Sedgwick
County's new Jail are invalid because
of a technicality. State Auditor w.
E. Davis refused to register them
when they were presented on the
ground that they we're voted at an
election called by insufficient notice.
X X X
Wichita Commissioner Dead.-J. e.
Howard, city commissioner and pio-
neer miller is dead in Wichita of
pleurisy after short illness. He was
SO years old Mr.. Howard was recog-
nd nf kha IN fhn
movement twenty years ago for cheap
er freight rates in Kansas.
X X X
To Test Cows at Independence.-An
association for testing COWS was
formed at independence recently with
a large membership. Twenty-six days
of work, embracing considerable
portion of the county, were planned.
Scientific stock raising is gaining
much favor in this county through the
county farm bureau.
X X X
Oldest Kansas Mason Dies.-John
A. Westmoreland, "a years old, the
Oldest Odd Fellow in Kansas in point
of membership and believed to have
been a member of the Masonic order
longer than any other man in Kansas,
is dead at the home of his daughter,
Mrs. Matthew German, two miles west
of Kansas City, Kan. He had been a
Mason and an Odd Fellow sixty-two
years.
x x X
Injured by Dynamite.-D. F. Don
myer, 33 years old, farmer living
near Salina, is'in a hospital suffering
from dynamite wound. Donmyer had
several sticks Of dynamite in boat
and was preparing to dynamite a fish
hole in the Smoky Hill river. The
dynamite exploded prematurely.
X 4 X
To Store Cement In RIns.-The lola
Portland Cement Company has COM