p. 3 | Crime in America

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 31, 1906

Crime in America

THE following quotation presents a summary of American criminal statistics for 1905 as gathered by the Chicago Tribune: “Embezzlements, forgeries, defaultings, and bank wreckings in 1905, which amounted to a total of $9,613,172, show a large increase over 1904, and are the largest since 1879. The number of homicides and deaths by violence of any kind show a considerable increase over 1904, being 9,212 as compared with 8,432 in the latter year. Self-murder is steadily increasing, the suicides for 1905 being 9,982 as compared with 9,240 in 1904, 6,556 being men and 3,426 women. The annual average ratio of homicides to population is 13 per million in Germany, 19 per million in France, 27 per million in the United Kingdom, 105 per million in Italy, and 115 per million in the United States. There is a marked decrease in the number of lynchings, the total for 1905 being sixty-six, the smallest number in nineteen years.” Men have been so long taught that they do dishonor to Christianity if they do not claim that the world is growing better, and that the millennium of righteousness is near at hand, that they deliberately close their eyes to the meaning of such statistics as these. The real truth is that the spirit of peace is being withdrawn from the earth, and the spirit of violence is becoming rampant. This indicates that the coming of the Lord is near.