What the likelihood is of every lynching in the United States having been reported to the Chicago Tribune during the last twenty-two years, and whether the probability has been uniform throughout the period, there is no means of determining. The annual review of disasters and crimes has, however, been made a special feature throughout the period, and this gives at least a presumption in favor of fullness and completeness in the record. It is at any rate safe to say that the cases of lynching actually reported probably afford a fair average basis of cases for statistical investigation. In view of these considerations, together with the corrections and verifications that have been made, it is believed that the Tribune record has reliability sufficient for its examination to lead to the deduction of trustworthy and valuable conclusions. On January 1, 1904, the Chicago Tribune published the following “table of lynchings” covering the last nineteen years[208]: 1885 184 1886 138 1887 122 1888 142 1889 176 1890 127 1891 192 1892 235 1893 200 1894 190 1895 171 1896 131 1897 166 1898 127 1899 107 1900 115 1901 135 1902 96 1903 104 After carefully going over the lists of names, as published each year, of the persons lynched during the last twenty-two years, the writer obtained the following table which is based throughout on the number of persons lynched. If only the number of lynchings were taken into account the numbers given would be considerably smaller.[209] NUMBER OF PERSONS LYNCHED