Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/173

Rh "Practically all of the material brought into the Children's Court," says Mr. Coulter, "is a gift from Europe."

Passing now to the cities which have received few immigrants from southern Europe, we find that the ratios of homicides have changed very little, and that they are uniformly low.

In the city of Buffalo, where at least 73 per cent, of the foreign born population are from northern Europe, the ratio of crimes of violence has remained almost stationary for thirty years. In 1880 the ratio of arrests for homicide was 2.60 per one hundred thousand of inhabitants; in 1890, the proportion was 3.52; while the annual average for the three years 1902-01 was 2.93.

In Rochester, where 85 per cent, of the foreign-born inhabitants are from the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Scandinavia, homicides have decreased relative to the population, the ratio of arrests for murder and manslaughter being, in 1880, 2.23 per one hundred thousand of population; in 1890, 0.74; while the annual ratio for the four years 1900-03 was 1.22.

In Syracuse, where 77 per cent, of the population are native whites, and where about 82 per cent, of the foreign-born are from the countries of northern Europe, but six cases of homicide have come under jurisdiction of the police department during the past fourteen years.

Passing south now to the Quaker City, we find that an arrest for homicide in Philadelphia, fifteen years ago, was of very rare occurrence (0.76 per 100,000 of inhabitants in 1890). Since that time the population of Philadelphia has increased by about 250,000, a large proportion of which augmentation has been the result of the increased immigration from southern Europe. Of the 295,340 foreigners in Philadelphia in 1900, 17,830 were born in Italy, 7,554 in Poland; 28,951 were natives of Russia, while 8,209 were born in Austria-Hungary or Bohemia; aggregating in all, from these countries, 62,544 immigrants of a much lower type, industrially and educationally, and, by inference, morally, than formerly migrated to this country. The results are shown in the records of the police courts, the ratio of arrests for homicides having increased fourfold since 1890, the annual average for the six years 1899-1904 being 4.93 per 100,000 of inhabitants.

That crimes of violence increase with the changing character of the immigrant population is shown clearly by the police statistics of the cities of Cleveland and Cincinnati. In the former city the annual average of arrests for homicide during the two years 1903-04 was 9.56 per 100,000 of population. In Cincinnati the average for the six years 1898-1904 was 6.23. In 1890 the disparity was still greater, the ratio being 4.04 in Cincinnati, and 13.01 in Cleveland. The annual average