the most trifling
matters. One was a dispute over a broom, another over a horse blanket,
another over food, another over a twenty-five cent bet in a pool game,
another over a loan of fifty cents, another over ten cents in a crap
game, and still another over one dollar and thirty cents in a crap game.
Five men were killed in drunken rows which had no immediate cause except
the desire to "start something." One man killed another because he had
not prevented the theft of some lumber, one (a policeman) because the
deceased would not "move on" when ordered, one because a bartender
refused to serve him with any more drinks, and one (a bartender) because
the deceased insisted that he should serve more drinks. One man was
killed in a quarrel over politics, one in a fuss over some beer, one in
a card game, one trying to rob a fruit-stand, one in a dispute with a
ship's officer, one in a dance hall row. One man killed another whom
he found with his wife, and one wife killed her husband for a similar
cause; another wife killed her husband simply because she "could not
stand him," and one because he was fighting with their son. One man
was killed by another who was trying to collect from him a debt of six
hundred dollars. One quarrel resulting in homicide arose because the
defendant had pointed out deceased to the police, another because
the participants called each other names, and another arose out of an
alleged seduction. Three homicides grew out of street rows originating
in various ways. One man killed another who was fighting with a friend
of the first, a janitor was killed in a "continuous row" which had been
going on for a long time, and one homicide was committed for "nothing in
particular."

This astonishing olla podrida of reasons for depriving men of their
lives leaves one stunned and confused. Is it possible to deduce any
order out of such homicidal chaos? Still, an attempt to classify such
diverse causes enables one to reach certain general conclusions. Out of
the sixty-two homicides there were seventeen cold-blooded murders,
with deliberation and premeditation (in such cases the reasons for
the killing are by comparison unimportant); three homicides due to
negligence, five committed while perpetrating a felony; thirty-seven
manslaughters, due in sixteen cases to quarrels (simply), thirteen
to drink, four to disputes over money, three to women, one to race
antagonism.

Reclassifying the seventeen murders according t