ratio per one hundred thousand of population. (The ratios were computed on the basis of statistics of crimes of violence compiled and published by the Record-Herald, of Chicago.) The white bars show the proportion of the population who, according to the United States census for 1900, were engaged in manufacturing pursuits, and the black bars indicate the percentage engaged in mining and quarrying:
It will be observed that Pennsylvania and West Virginia are the only states in the Union which are engaged extensively in mining, and yet have a comparatively low ratio of homicides. This is largely due to the fact that the mining districts in these states are adjacent to well-populated and comparatively cultured communities, whereas in the West, the mines are situated in states or territories which contain few or no large cities, and wherein the rural population is of a rather low order. Colorado, for example, has but one large city, and is one of the five most sparsely settled states or territories of the (continental) Union; whereas Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has more towns of over 4,000 population than any other state, giving it the highest per cent, of urban population of any commonwealth in the Union with the exception of New York. Again, whereas West Virginia has 38.9 persons to the square mile, Nevada has 0.4.[1]
Consistently with all that has herein been stated, we find the greater percentages of foreign-born who are most given to crimes of violence in the very states shown to produce the greater proportion of homicides, and most of which are engaged most extensively in mining, as may be seen by comparing Fig. 7 with the one preceding.
Not wishing needlessly to multiply examples and evidences, it may be said in conclusion that, however desirable the hundreds of thousands of ignorant immigrants annually landed on our shores may be from an economic standpoint, as 'much-needed laborers' or, however charitably we may personally feel toward the hordes of hapless human beings who seek to better their condition by coming to this land of freedom and opportunities, such a vast addition of untutored and poverty-stricken people, unused to self-restraint, can not be absorbed without a material increase in crimes of violence throughout the United States, and especially in the large cities, where the recent immigration has for the greater part congested. It is to be hoped that the evidences of the Children's Court of New York City, and of police statistics in general, are symptoms rather of conditions to be remedied than of evils destined to grow more portentous.
- ↑ The Report of Warden C. E. Haddox, of the West Virginia State Penitentiary, for 1903-04, shows that the five counties in which mining industries predominate, with a total population of 139,812, sent 419 persons; while sixteen other counties, whose population is engaged in agriculture or other equally stable pursuits, numbering in all 205,175 persons, are represented by 28 convicts. In the mining counties one person in every 333 was sent to the penitentiary; in the sixteen bounties mentioned, one in each 7,327 of population was sent to prison—a difference as great as 300 is to 13.
