The New York World of Sunday last contains an inter-
view with Mr. Andrew D. White, first President of Cornell University, and subsequently Minister at St. Petersburg and Ambassador at Berlin. Since his retirement from that post Mr. White has conducted an inquiry into the administration of the criminal law in the States. The results have been to convince him that at the present day "it is safer to kill a man in the United States than to kill a deer." Speaking on January 28th, he predicts that before January 28th, 1911, five thousand. men and women in the United States will have been murdered Mr. White continues :—" Twenty years ago there were about fifteen hundred murders yearly, in the United States. There are now eight thousand. The percentage of murders in the United States to the population is forty-three times greater than in Canada and eight times greater than hi Belgium, which has the worst record in Europe." An especially disquieting symptom is the sympathy bestowed on criminals, which prompts Mr. White to make the ironical
suggestion that • the State should purchase the Waldorf- Astoria: or some other New York hotel, confine all the murderers in it, and "dine and wine" them until they die of gout. Mr. White is doing a great service to his country by thus drawing public attention to a blot on .A merican civilisation.
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