Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1894 — A YEAR’S CRIMES. [ARTICLE]

A YEAR’S CRIMES.

The Record of 1803 Hits a Hopeful Look. In what may be called tho world's moral departments some of the statistics for 181)3 havo a hopeful look, so far as this country is concerned. The number of murders and homicides of various kinds, amounting to 6,615, shows a slight falling off as compared with 181)2, when there were 6,791, whereas for ten years previously they showed a steady increase. The record of suicides on the other hand is not so encouraging, as it numbers 4,436 as against 3,8 u() in 1892. For the last fifteen years suicides in the United States have increased steadily and out of proportion to tho increase of population. The enormous disproportion between males and females is shown by the fact that while 858 of the latter took their own lives there were 3,578 of the former. As the outcome of murders and other crimes 126 persons have been executed legally, as against 107 in 1892, and 200 have been lynched, as again-.t 236 In 1892. The increase in legal and the decrease in i legal hangings would indicate healthier conditions in the operations of justice, for it is the first t.me in fifteen years that the record of lynching has shown a decrease. The statistics, as usual, point to the South as the favorite locality of Judge Lynch and mob law. While 17 have "been lynched In tho Northern 183 have been lynched in the Southern States, and of these 183 no lesß than 151 wore colored men. 1