WHEN a shrewd but genial editor called me up on the telephone and asked me how I should like to write an article (a “story,” he called it) on the above lurid title, I laughed in his—I mean the telephone’s face. “My dear fellow!” I said (I should only have the nerve to call him that over a wire). “My dear fellow! It would ruin me! How could I keep my self-respect and write that kind of sensational stuff—me, a reputable, conservative, dry-as-dust member of the bar! Go to! Why do men kill? Ha-ha! Why do men eat? Why do men drink? Why do men love? Why do men——” “Yes,” came back his somewhat cynical voice “Why?” “How do I know?” I answered, still trying to be jocular. “_I_ never killed anybody!” “Eh?” said he. I paused. “Well,” I admitted, “never actually with my own hand, old chap! I have—taken part—so to speak—in—er—proceedings that ultimately resulted in the death of certain human beings—in a perfectly legal way, but I’m not sure that I entirely approved of it. Duty, you know! Salary—I had a growing family.” “Look here!” he interrupted. “I want that story. I want to know something. I do! I want to know why one man kills another man. If we knew why, maybe we could stop it, couldn’t we? We could try to, anyhow. And you know something about it. You’ve prosecuted nearly a hundred men for murder. Get the facts—that’s what I want. Cut the adjectives and morality, and get down to the reasons. Anything particularly undignified about that?” “N—o,” I began, taking a fresh start. “All right,” he replied crisply. “Send it up for January.” And he rang off. I arose and walked over to the bookcase on which reposed several shelves of “minutes” of criminal trials. They were dusty and depressing. Practically every one of them was a memento of some poor devil gone to prison or to the chair. Where were they now—and _why_ did they kill—yes, why _did_ they? I glanced along the red-labeled backs. “People _versus_ Candido.” Now why did _he_ kill? I remembered the Italian perfectly. He killed his friend because the latter had been too attentive to his wife. “People _versus_ Higgins.” Why did he? That was a drunken row on a New Year’s Eve within the sound of Trinity chimes. “People _versus_ 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.