MURDER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 93, 19 April 1912, Page 2

MURDER.

If you were asked to name the - most murderous country on earth, your thoughts would probably wander in the direction of Turkey or China or the Congo or .some other outlandish spot. But yon would be wrong. The country in which the most murders are committed, and with the greatest freedom from punishment, is the civilised country which calls itself America. Last year there were no fewer than 8975 deaths from murder; and yon can get some idea of what these figures mean if you reflect that oven time the clock strikes, from the first to the last day of the year, someone is murdered in America. An English weekly analyses these figures—the total has already been given in these columns —rather ingenuously. Suppose yon read in the paper one day, says the writer, that in Chicago or Now York a gang.of dyn ami lards had slaughtered a hundred innocent persons, you would doubtless he hornlied; and yet so colossal is the total of murders that such an outrage would not make any perceptible difference in the average. A closer examination of the figures is still more striking than the total. Out of nearly 9900 murders only 1000 were committed by what wo call professional criminals, that is, highwaymen and Fontpads. The rest was the work of amateurs, nr those who are not habitually criminals. But the most amazing point about American crime statistics is not so much the number of murders as the number of murderers who escape punishment. In one year there wore 10,700 convicts in prison serving various sentences for the crime oi murder. Some ol them were known to have been in prison for some time. That ;s to say, the 10,700 convictions

were spread over ;i number of years. Expert analysis puts the average sentence ;it about ten years. 'I Ins means, roughly, that not one murderer.- in ton in ilie Tinted Slaters is over imprisoned. To sum np the situation we obtain tire following astounding odds: In the first place, it is thr e to one that the murderer wd! never he firelight to trial. Next, it is ten to one that the murderer who is brought to trial .will never he sentenced to prison. Thirdly, it is eighty to one that the murderer will never bo executed.