Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1894 — MURDER IN AMERICA. [ARTICLE]

MURDER IN AMERICA.

Queer Facta About the Crime la This Country. Some late statistics published in regard to crime in this country show some interesting and curious facts. We generally think foreigners commit most of the murders in this country but, in fact, over half the homicides committed by white people are chargeable to native Americans. The negro homicides constitute nearly one-half of all such crimes native jor foreign, and they are remarkable for cruelty and brutality. Murderers are not usually illiterate. The majority of them can read anti write, except in Jhe case of negroes, less [than half of whom can do either, and pf.the Indians only a very few have any education or even civilization at all One of the most curious facts is the large number of farmers guilty of homicide. The farmer is usually supposed to be tractable and peaceloving. Yet out of all homicides in any one year it will be found that nearly one-third of them are committed by farmers. It is even claimed by some that contact with the soil arouses a love lor blood. The professions furnish about one or two out of 100; the office-holders about one for every 200, and the fishers about one for every 300. Unskilled labor is credited with most, agriculturists come next, manufactures and mechanical industries follow, and then in eheir order of criminality come personal and house servants, railroad and steamship people, trade and commerce, mining, professional, official lumber and miscellaneous. To the everlasting honor of womanhood, be it said that out of all homicides men commit at least 96 per cent, of them and women not over 5 or 6 per cent, and of those the vast majority are by lewd and abandoned women. And of the men it is found, naturally enough, that nearly one-half of then) fire bacXglora Men are never too old to murder. The average age is found to be about 35 years, except among the Chinese, where the average is higher. Twenty per cent are under 35 and a few are over the Scriptural three score and ten. The average age of women is over 32, and that of the negroes is about 30. The figures also dispel the popular delusion that idleness is crime’s great workshop, as over three-fourths of all persons charged with homicide were employed at the time of the crime. Nor does liquor play the allimportant part usually attributed to it. Less than one fifth of all tfce homicides are found to be inveterate drinkers, while fully as large a number are found to be total abstainers. Over 90 per cent, have been found to be in good physical health, and very few have shown any striking marks of physical atavism or degeneration.