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.