“To the printed circulars sent out answers were received in relation to 16 out of the 30 cases of lynching. No answers were received in 14 of the cases, although the envelopes bore the usual direction to the postmaster to be returned if not delivered, and only one of them was returned. Of the 16 cases in respect to which answers were received, there were 3 cases in which 3 answers were returned, 5 in which 2 were returned, and 8 in which one was returned. Most of the answers were unsigned; many were very vague; a few declined to state the facts; and several requested secrecy. The general impression derived from the attempt to obtain information by the circular was that there was, in many cases, a strong disinclination, for some cause, to give any information.”[206] In an attempt to verify some reports of lynchings in the years 1902 and 1903, the writer has met with a similar experience. A letter addressed to the mayor of a town in Arkansas was returned with the following penciled at the bottom of the sheet: “if you will give me some idea as to your reasons for wanting this information I might give you some information regarding same.” A letter addressed to the mayor of a town in Georgia was returned with the following written at the bottom of the sheet: “In answer to the above I will say that I don’t know anything about it.” No name was signed in either case. These two replies, together with Mr. Holt’s experience, are sufficient to indicate the difficulties attendant upon the collection, by any such method, of data in regard to lynchings covering any considerable period of time. For more than twenty-two years the Chicago Tribune has published at the close of each year an itemized summary of the disasters and crimes in the United States for the year. An editorial in the Tribune for January 1, 1883, reads as follows: “Elsewhere in this issue will be found a series of reviews of the happenings during 1882. A necrological table is furnished, also a list of the more important crimes, casualties, suicides, lynchings, and judicial executions for the last year. The tables have been prepared with great care from the columns of _The Tribune_, and furnish as complete a review of the unpleasant features of the dead year as could possibly be obtained.” This annual review published by the Tribune supplies the most available and practically the only source for statistics of lynchings. The following facts are given: the date of the lynching, the name of the victim, his color and his nationality, the alleged crime for which he was lynched, and the town and State where the lynching took place. Only the names of those who have suffered death at the hands of mobs are included. No account is taken of attempted lynchings or of persons to whom mob violence was done but who recovered from their injuries.