heart; a striker was killed by a twenty-five-pound piece of
flagging thrown from a roof; there was a gun fight of colored
men at Madison, Wisconsin, at which three were shot; a gang of
negro ruffians killed and mutilated a white woman (with a baby
in her arms) and her husband; masked robbers called a man to
his barn at Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and cut his throat;
an Italian was found with his head split in two by a butcher's
cleaver; a negress in Lafayette, Louisiana, killed a family of
six with a hatchet; a negro farmer and his two daughters were
lynched and their bodies burned by four white men (who will
probably also be lynched if caught); a girl of eleven shot her
girl friend of about the same age and killed her; several
persons were found stabbed to death; a plumber killed his
brother (also a plumber) for saying that he stole two dollars;
a murderer was shot by a posse of militia in a cornfield; a
card game at Bayonne, New Jersey, resulted in a revolver fight
on the street in which one of the players was killed; bank
robbers killed a cashier at twelve o'clock noon; a jealous
lover in Butte, Montana, shot and killed his sweetheart, her
father, and mother; a deputy sheriff was murdered; burglars
killed several persons in the course of their business;
Kokolosski, a Pole, kicked his child to death; and a couple of
dozen people were incidentally shot, stabbed, or otherwise
disposed of in the course of quarrels over the most trivial
matters. In almost no case was there what an intelligent,
civilized man would regard as an adequate reason for the
homicide. They killed because they felt like killing, and
yielded to the impulse, whatever its immediate origin.

This conclusion is abundantly supported by the figures of the