_Is Crime Increasing?_ How we answer this question will, of course, depend upon the length of time considered. We have no statistics going back further than fifty years in this country. Moreover, it is entirely possible to hold that while crime has decreased during the historic era among civilized peoples, it has increased during the last twenty-five or fifty years. All statistics of crime in the United States seem to show that it has increased. In 1850 for example, the number of prisoners was 6737 which was one prisoner to every 3442 of the population. But the census of 1850 was seriously defective, and we would better take the census of 1860 as the basis of our comparison. In 1860 the census showed a total prison population of 19,086, which was one prisoner to every 1647 of the population. In 1890 the census showed 82,329 prisoners in the total population, which was one in every 757. In other words, between 1860 and 1890 the total population of the country just doubled, while the number of prisoners quadrupled. Inasmuch as the census of 1904 was taken upon an entirely different basis, we cannot bring the comparison down to that year. The value of these statistics has often been questioned, but it has been questioned chiefly by people who have not taken other corroborative evidence into account. The chief corroborating evidence is to be found in the statistics of prisoners in our state prisons from 1880 to 1904. Now only those are sent to state prisons who are guilty of felonies, and the length of term of sentence in our state prisons has steadily shortened during the last twenty-five years, while within the last few years the practice of suspending sentence on probation for first felons has been largely introduced. We should expect, therefore, a decrease in the state prison population in proportion to the general population. But we find that the number in state prisons rose from 30,659 in 1880, to 45,233 in 1890, an increase of 47.5 per cent, while the general population increased only 24.86 per cent. Again the number rose in 1904 to 60,553, an increase of 33 per cent, while the general population increased about 30 per cent. Apparently, therefore, the amount of serious crime in the United States is increasing more rapidly than the population. Corroborating evidence is also found from Massachusetts statistics, which indicate that between 1850 and 1880 the prison population increased twice as rapidly as the general population. Other evidence could be cited, but the statistics of our state penitentiaries may be considered conclusive when all facts are taken into consideration. There is apparently no escape from the conclusion that serious crime between 1880 and 1904 increased more rapidly than the population.