the real cause of the killing is the fact that the gunpowder
is there, lying around loose, and ready to be touched off.
What engenders this gunpowder state of mind would make a
valuable sociological study, but it may well be that a
seemingly inconsequential fact may so embitter a boy or man
toward life or the human race in general that in time he "sees
red" and goes through the world looking for trouble. Any
cause that makes for crime and depravity makes for murder as
well. The little boy who is driven out of the tenement onto
the street, and in turn off the street by a policeman, until,
finding no wholesome place to play, he joins a "gang" and
begins an incipient career of crime, may end in the "death
house."

The table on the opposite page gives the figures collected by
the 'Chicago Tribune' for the years from 1881 to 1910.

In view of the foregoing it may seem paradoxical for the
writer to state that he questions the alleged unusual tendency
to commit murder on the part of citizens of the United States.
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