“The alarm produced in all classes of society due to the extraordinary development which is taking place in the criminality in Chile, especially in the capital, has induced us to open an investigation as to the causes of such a deplorable social condition. A study of the causes which have tended to foster such a great increase in the number of criminal acts is undoubtedly due to the complete disorganization of public affairs in this country, and should serve to call seriously the attention of the government to the imperious necessity of attempting some course of action which would tend to remedy in part, at least, the disastrous condition of the nation at large. The enormous development of criminality in this country is not only the manifestation of a very grave social condition, nor is it only the symptom of a social dissolution in its worst form, but it is the visible cause of the discredit which our country is suffering among foreign nations. “The European press avails itself of all data relative to the number of terrible crimes committed in Chile, and also of their sanguinary and atrocious character, and denounces them to their fellow citizens as proof of the insecurity of life and property in this country.” _El Mercurio_, in its endeavor to ascertain the reason for the extraordinary criminal condition of the country, interviewed Mr. Luis Urzua Gana, public prosecutor for the department of Santiago, who made the following statement: “I believe that the first and foremost cause of the existing criminal condition is due to the fact that a large proportion of the crimes remain unpunished. I believe that eighty per cent. of the offenses committed are not punished, and that a large proportion of them are not even denounced. As the greater the probability that a crime will not be punished, so law and justice lose their deterrent effect. “Another cause of criminality is the large number of vagrant children, either in complete idleness or in some kind of work which enables them to gain in a few hours enough money for their food and vices. Boys of twelve years of age and even under, exhibit in this country, the same moral monstrosities as do men old in sin and crime. Among them, gambling has reached a surprising development, and there seems to be no form of immorality which has not its adepts among them. And worse still there are people who foster their vicious practices and make a business out of their degradation.”