Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/175

Rh in various cities, per 100,000 of population, it appears that the proportion of crimes of violence has not increased in Cincinnati during the past twenty-five years. The following figures show that they have at least increased in numbers. The police-court records show that during the twenty-one years 1884-1904, there were 335 arrests for murder in Cincinnati, an annual average of 15.95. During the ten years 1895-190-1 the annual average was 17. The annual average for the four vears 1901-04 was 21.

In Minneapolis, where nearly 90 per cent, of the foreign-born population are from northern Europe, and where there are neither Chinese, Italians, nor negroes, homicides are proportionately rare, the ratio of arrests for murder and manslaughter being in 1880, 2.13; and in 1901 less than one per one hundred thousand of inhabitants. In Milwaukee, where over 60 per cent, of the foreign population are Germans, the annual average ratio of arrests for homicides during the seven years 1898-1901 was 1.77 per one hundred thousand of inhabitants. This is more than twice the proportion occurring in Minneapolis; but Milwaukee has about twice the proportion of immigrants from southern Europe that Minneapolis has. In 1880, when there were comparatively few immigrants in Milwaukee from Italy, Poland, Russia or the Balkans, the ratio of arrests for homicides was 0.87 per one hundred thousand of population, and, as late as 1890, the ratio was but 0.97.

Although there is no city in the state of Kansas ranking in population with the cities here studied, for the sake of its instructive example the city of Kansas, as the largest city in the state, may be given special mention. During the two years ending October 31, 1905, the annual average of homicides (not the number of arrests therefor) was 17.61 per one hundred thousand of inhabitants. An inquiry addressed to Chief-of-Police Yernon J. Rose, evoked the reply that at least four fifths of these homicides were committed by the immigrant and negro population, who comprise, together, over 25 per cent, of the total population of the city. About 40 per cent, of the 9,000 employees of the six great packing houses are natives of Russia, Greece, Poland, Croatia, Bulgaria and Hungary, and Chief-of-Police Rose states that it is among these 'Bohunks' (the local term which comprehends these races as a group) that nearly all of the homicides among the whites occur.

In Providence (R. I.), where the Italians comprise more than ten per cent, of the foreign population, and where 38.1 per cent, of the total inhabitants are of foreign birth, the ratio of arrests for homicide is lower than in Boston, the annual average of arrests for homicide in Providence being, for the four years 1901-04, 1.70; and for Boston (during the two years 1904-05) 1.98 per one hundred thousand of inhabitants. But in Rhode Island, as a whole, the proportion of