Yet of one fact he is absolutely convinced--namely, that homicide has substantially decreased in the last fifteen years.

Even according to the figures collected by the 'Chicago Tribune', there were but 8,975 homicides in 1910 as compared with 10,500 in 1895, and 10,652 in 1896.

Meantime the population of our country has been leaping onward.
NUMBER OF MURDERS AND HOMICIDES IN THE UNITED STATES EACH YEAR SINCE 1891, COMPARED WITH THE POPULATION NUMBER OF NUMBER OF MURDERS AND ESTIMATED MURDERS AND YEAR HOMICIDES IN POPULATION HOMICIDES THE UNITED OF THE FOR EACH STATES UNITED STATES MILLION OF PEOPLE 1881......1,266..........51,316,000..........24.7 1882......1.467......... .-- --------..........27.9 1883......1,697......... .-- --------..........31.6 1884......1,465......... .-- --------..........26.7 1885......1,808..........56,148,000..........32.2 1886......1,499......... .-- --------..........26.1 1887......2,335......... .-- --------..........39.8 1888......2,184......... .-- -------...........36.4 1889......3,567......... .-- -------...........58.0 1890......4,290.........62,622,250...........68.5 1891......5,906......... .-- -------...........92.4 1892......6,791......... .-- -------..........104.2 1893......6,615......... .-- -------..........99.5 1894......9,800......... .-- -------.........144.7 1895.....10,500.........69,043,000.........152.2 1896.....10,652......... .-- -------.........151.3 1897......9,520......... .-- -------.........132.8 1898......7,840......... .-- -------.........107.2 1899......6,225......... .-- -------..........83.6 1900......8,275.........75,994,575.........108.7 1901......7,852.........77,754,000.........100.9 1902......8,834.........79,117,000.........111.7 1903......8,976......... .-- -------.........112.0 1904......8,482......... .-- -------...............
1905......9,212......... .-- -------...............
1906......9,350........ .-- -------................
1907......8,712......... .-- -------...............
1908......8,952......... .-- -------...............
1909......8,103......... .-- -------...............
1910......8,975.........91,972,266...........97.5 Total......191,150 We are blood-thirsty enough, God knows, without making things out any worse than they are.

Our murder rate per 100,000 unquestionably exceeds that of most of the countries of western Europe, but, as the saying is, "there's a reason." If our homicide statistics related only to the white population of even the second generation born in this country we should find, I am convinced, that we are no more homicidal than France and Belgium, and less so than Italy.

It is to be expected that with our Chinese, "greaser," and half-breed population in the West, our Black Belt in the South, and our Sicilian and South Italian immigration in the North and East, our murder rate should exceed those of the continental nations, which are nothing if not well policed.
But of one thing we can be abundantly certain without any figures at all, and that is that our present method of administering justice (less the actions of juries than of judges)--the system taken as a whole--offers no deterrent to the embryonic or professional criminal.
The administration of justice to-day is not the swift judgment of honest men upon a criminal act, but a clever game between judge and lawyer, in which the action of the jury is discounted entirely and the moves are made with a view to checkmating justice, not in the trial courtroom, but before the appellate tribunal two or three years later.
"My young feller," said a grizzled veteran of the criminal bar to me long years ago, after our jury had gone out, "there's lots of things in this game you ain't got on to yet.