The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-01-27
h0micides Have Increased 200
Per Cent in 20 Years, Says
Warden Codding.
some STARTLING STATISTICS
Only Two Per Cent of SIayers Are
Detected and Punished, Peniten-
tiary Official Says.

1Shed-
If you come to violent death, the
chances are about 100 to 1 that it will
be at the hand of some depraved, city
reared youth, pampered and oYerin-
dulged by a 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 J. K.
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 IN
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.
To,. cont Of no mon in ha Kan
sas prison were idle when they COM
mitted crime. Sixty-eight per cent are
men under so years old and 81 out of
every 100 land there because of drink
Only one man in ten ever had an APP
preciable amount of training, so per
cent are physically defective and four
out of ten are mentally deficient.
Coal Oil Kills Cow.-A COW belong
ing to DR.. T. 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 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.
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 CT
brick at Buffalo the other day.
Jail Bonds void?EThe $4,000
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 were voted at an
! election called by insufficient notice.
Wichita Commissioner Dead. E.
| Howard, city commissioner and a pio-
neer miller is dead in Wichita of
| pleurisy after a short illness. He was
| SO years old Mr. Howard was recog-
| nized as one of the leaders in the
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 a 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.
Injured by Dynamite-D. F. Don
myeT, SO years old, farmer living
near Salina, is in a hospital suffering
from a dynamite wound. Donmyer had
several sticks of dynamite in a boat
and was preparing to dynamite fish
hole in the Smoky Hill river. The
dynamite exploded prematurely.
x
To Store Cement in Bins.-The lola
Portland Cement Company has com
pIeted the construction OF six nam
moth cement storage bins with a com
bined capacity of 100,O0O barrels. The
bins are made Of cement and are sew.
enty feet high. They are the first
of the kind west of New York
Found With Broken Neck-The
body Of Peter Pierson, mine driver
was found in a mine at Dunkirk recent
ly. His neck was broken A trip OF
cars which he was handling had beer
wrecked at the foot of a grade
Leap From Burning Car-TWenty
passengers jumped from a Union Pa
cific motor car at Lindsborg the Other
night when oil and gasoline in waste
} pan under the gasoline motor caught
fire as the car was pulling into the
station at Lindsborg. The Lindsbors
volunteer fire department put out the