Sterling Greene." Yes, he was a colored man--I recalled the
evidence--drink and a "yellow gal." "People versus Mock
Duck"-a Chinese feud between the On Leong Tong and the Hip
Sing Tong--a vendetta, first one Chink shot and then another,
turn and turn about, running back through Mott Street, New
York, Boston, San Francisco, until the origin of the quarrel
was lost in the dim Celestial mists across the sea. Out of
the first four cases the following motives: Jealousy--1.
Drink--1. Drink and jealousy--1. Scattering (how can you
term a "Tong" row?)--1.

I began to get interested. Supposing I dug out all the
homicide cases I had ever tried, what would the result show as
to motive for the killing? Would drink and women account for
seventy-five per cent? Mentally I ran my eye back over nearly
ten years. What OTHER motives had the defendants at the bar
had? There was Laudiero--an Italian "Camorrista"--he had
killed simply for the distinction it gave him among his
countrymen and the satisfaction he felt at being known as a
"bad" man--a "capo maestra." There was Joseph Ferrone--pure
jealousy again. Hendry--animal hate intensified by drink.
Yoscow--a deliberate murder, planned in advance by several of
a gang, to get rid of a young bully who had made himself
generally unpleasant. There was Childs, who had killed, as he
claimed, in self-defence because he was set upon and assaulted
by rival runners from another seaman's boarding house. Really
it began to look as if men killed for a lot of reasons.

One consideration at once suggested itself. How about the
killings where the murderer is never caught? The prisoners