LAST CENSUS AND ITS BEARING ON CRIME 401 



any approximate conclusion upon the basis of facts. The census of 

 1890 gives 23.38 per cent, drunkards among its aggregate prison popu- 

 lation, after deducting the number whose habits are " not stated." 



Drunkenness is the prevailing habit of criminal offenders, fully 50 

 per cent, of crimes being due to that habit in this and European 

 countries, perhaps 20 per cent, of the crime in this country being 

 actually committed in the saloons themselves, which are the hotbeds 

 of the criminal propaganda. 



The great bulk of crime in the United States, proportionately, is 

 upon the side of the foreign-born population. Succinctly stated, 

 the 13 per cent, of the whole population, representing the foreign-born 

 element, commit 23 per cent, of the crimes in the United States. 

 Precisely the same ratio was reported by the census of 1890. The 

 parentage of this foreign-born element aggregates 29.8 per cent., with 

 a mixed parentage of 6.9 per cent, as against 63.3 per cent, of native- 

 born. The leading nationalities thus represented are Ireland, 36.2 

 per cent, out of a representation of 15 per cent.; Germany, 12.3 per 

 cent, out of 25 per cent.; Canada, 10.1 per cent, out of 11.4 per cent., 

 and England and "Wales, 9.2 per cent, out of 9.10 per cent., of the 

 whole population. As to the more recent arrivals, the Italians furnish 

 6.1 per cent., with 3.5 per cent, of Eussians, and 3 per cent, of Poles. 

 This foreign element is not indigenous to the soil, but belongs to old 

 world criminalism, a form of accretion that does not help swell, but 

 diminishes, proportionately, the list of the country whence it comes. 

 It is characteristic of no other country in making up the criminal con- 

 sensus. 



A careful study of the statistics of the various states show un- 

 equivocally the vital relation crime sustains to the two great negative 

 centers of the social disease, viz., ignorance and want. As to illiter- 

 acy, that relation is not so apparent in the present as is usually shown 

 by the reports of local institutions. Of the 144,597 committals for the 

 year 1904, 83 per cent, were literates, and 12.6 per cent, were given 

 as illiterates, and 4.3 per cent, not stated. The total percentage of 

 illiterates in the United States was 10.7 per cent. 



The occupation of the prisoner is more suggestive. Over 47 per 

 cent, of the white offenders belonged to the laboring classes and serv- 

 ants, and but 3.5 per cent, to the professional and clerical order, 

 while 27 per cent, were credited to the manufacturing and mechanical 

 trades. Among these, it is observable, the professional (to the extent 

 of 2.1 per cent.), and the agricultural portion (to the number of 23.4 

 per cent.), were more addicted to major than to minor offences, while 

 the laboring classes and servants were more prone to the lesser than 

 to the graver forms, the temptations to the latter being much less in 

 rural districts than in the cities. The largest proportion of offences 



