The table on the opposite page gives the figures collected by the 'Chicago Tribune' for the years from 1881 to 1910.
In view of the foregoing it may seem paradoxical for the writer to state that he questions the alleged unusual tendency to commit murder on the part of citizens of the United States. Yet of one fact he is absolutely convinced—namely, that homicide has substantially decreased in the last fifteen years. Even according to the figures collected by the 'Chicago Tribune', there were but 8,975 homicides in 1910 as compared with 10,500 in 1895, and 10,652 in 1896. Meantime the population of our country has been leaping onward.
NUMBER OF MURDERS AND HOMICIDES IN THE UNITED STATES EACH
YEAR SINCE 1891, COMPARED WITH THE POPULATION
NUMBER OF NUMBER OF
MURDERS AND ESTIMATED MURDERS AND
YEAR HOMICIDES IN POPULATION HOMICIDES
THE UNITED OF THE FOR EACH
STATES UNITED STATES MILLION OF
PEOPLE
1881......1,266..........51,316,000..........24.7
1882......1.467..........—————..........27.9
1883......1,697..........—————..........31.6
1884......1,465..........—————..........26.7
1885......1,808..........56,148,000..........32.2
1886......1,499..........—————..........26.1
1887......2,335..........—————..........39.8
1888......2,184..........————-...........36.4
1889......3,567..........————-...........58.0
1890......4,290.........62,622,250...........68.5
1891......5,906..........————-...........92.4
1892......6,791..........————-..........104.2
1893......6,615..........————-..........99.5
1894......9,800..........————-.........144.7
1895.....10,500.........69,043,000.........152.2
1896.....10,652..........————-.........151.3
1897......9,520..........————-.........132.8
1898......7,840..........————-.........107.2
1899......6,225..........————-..........83.6
1900......8,275.........75,994,575.........108.7
1901......7,852.........77,754,000.........100.9
1902......8,834.........79,117,000.........111.7
1903......8,976..........————-.........112.0
1904......8,482..........————-...............
1905......9,212..........————-...............
1906......9,350.........————-................
1907......8,712..........————-...............
1908......8,952..........————-...............
1909......8,103..........————-...............
1910......8,975.........91,972,266...........97.5
Total......191,150
We are blood-thirsty enough, God knows, without making things out any worse than they are. Our murder rate per 100,000 unquestionably exceeds that of most of the countries of western Europe, but, as the saying is, "there's a reason." If our homicide statistics related only to the white population of even the second generation born in this country we should find, I am convinced, that we are no more homicidal than France and Belgium, and less so than Italy. It is to be expected that with our Chinese, "greaser," and half-breed population in the West, our Black Belt in the South, and our Sicilian and South Italian immigration in the North and East, our murder rate should exceed those of the continental nations, which are nothing if not well policed.
But of one thing we can be abundantly certain without any figures at all, and that is that our present method of administering justice (less the actions of juries than of judges)—the system taken as a whole—offers no deterrent to the embryonic or professional criminal. The administration of justice to-day is not the swift judgment of honest men upon a criminal act, but a clever game between judge and lawyer, in which the action of the jury is discounted entirely and the moves are made with a view to checkmating justice, not in the trial courtroom, but before the appellate tribunal two or three years later.
"My young feller," said a grizzled veteran of the criminal bar to me long years ago, after our jury had gone out, "there's lots of things in this game you ain't got on to yet. Do you think I care what this jury does? Not one mite. I got a nice little error into the case the very first day—and I've set back ever since. S'pose we are convicted? I'll get Jim here [the prisoner] out on a certificate and it'll be two years before the Court of Appeals will get around to the case. Meantime Jim'll be out makin' money to pay me my fee—won't you, Jim? Then your witnesses, will be gone, and nobody'll remember what on earth it's all about. You'll be down in Wall Street practicing real law yourself, and the indictment will kick around the office for a year or so, all covered with dust, and then some day I'll get a friend of mine to come in quietly and move to dismiss. And it'll be dismissed. Don't you worry! Why, a thousand other murders will have been committed in this county by the time that happens. Bless your soul! You can't go on tryin' the same man forever! Give the other fellers a chance. You shake your head? Well, it's a fact. I've been doin' it for forty years. You'll see." And I did. That may not be why men kill, but perhaps indirectly it may have something to do with it.
CHAPTER V. Detectives and Others
A Detective, according to the dictionaries, is one "whose occupation it is to discover matters as to which information is desired, particularly wrong-doers, and to obtain evidence to be used against them." A private detective, by the same authority, is one "engaged unofficially in obtaining secret information for or guarding the private interests of those who employ him." The definition emphasizes the official character of detectives in general as contrasted with those whose services may be enlisted for hire by the individual citizen, but the distinction is of little importance, since it is based arbitrarily upon the character of the employer (whether the State or a private client) instead of upon the nature of the employment itself, which is the only thing which is likely to interest us about detectives at all.
The sanctified tradition that a detective was an agile person with a variety of side-whiskers no longer obtains even in light literature, and the most imaginative of us is frankly aware of the fact that a detective is just a common man earning (or pretending to earn) a common living by common and obvious means. Yet in spite of ourselves we are accustomed to attribute superhuman acuteness and a lightning-like rapidity of intellect to this vague and romantic class of fellow-citizens. The ordinary work of a detective, however, requires neither of these qualities. Honesty and obedience are his chief requirements, and if he have intelligence as well, so much the better, provided it be of the variety known as "horse" sense. A genuine candidate for the job of Sherlock Holmes would find little competition. In the first place, the usual work of a detective does not demand any extraordinary powers of deduction at all.