Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/166

162 and the deplorable rise in the ratio (per 100,000 of population) of deaths from homicide.

The figure below (No. 2) shows graphically the source and extent of the annual immigration into the United States since 1880, the annual number of arrivals from Italy being given separately because of its special importance in the present inquiry:

The records of our penal institutions prove that it is not the alien as such who adds unduly to the number of homicides in this country; they show rather that the alarming increase in crimes of violence is due to certain particular elements of our immigrant population.

Among the nationalities represented in our prisons, the sad preeminence for murder belongs to the alien Mexican, 121 of whom are now confined for deliberately killing a fellow man, though their total number in this country hardly exceeds one hundred thousand. Among an equal number of alien Irishmen less than three have been convicted on the charge of murder, and of German and English immigrants not more than four in each one hundred thousand are held for this grave offense. Among Scandinavian aliens the ratio is still smaller. Next to the Mexicans, the Chinese are the most murderously inclined of any foreigners present, 65 in each one hundred thousand of their