had a particularly
atrocious case, sent it to him in order that the defendant might surely
get his full deserts.

The reasons for these homicides were of every sort; police officers and
citizens were shot and killed by criminals trying to make "get-aways,"
and by negroes and others "running amuck"; despondent young men shot
their unresponsive sweethearts and then either blew out their own brains
of pretended to try to do so; two stable-men had a duel with revolvers,
and each killed the other; several men were shot for being too attentive
to young women residing in the same hotels; an Italian, whose wife had
left him and gone to her mother, went to the house and killed her,
her sister, her sister's husband, his mother-in-law, two children, and
finally himself; the "Gopher Gang" started a riot at a "benefit" dance
given to a widow and killed a man, after which they fled to the woods
and fired from cover upon the police until eighteen were overpowered and
arrested; a young girl and her fiance, sitting in the parlor, planning
their honeymoon, were unexpectedly interrupted by a rejected suitor of
the girl's, who shot and killed both of them; an Italian who peeked into
a bedroom, just for fun, afterward rushed in and cut off two persons'
heads with an ax--one of them was his wife; a gang of white ruffians
shot and then burned a negro family of three peacefully working in the
fields; a man who went to the front door to see who had tapped on
his window was shot through the heart; a striker was killed by a
twenty-five-pound piece of flagging thrown from a roof; there was a gun
fight of colored men at Madison, Wisconsin, at which three were shot; a
gang of negro ruffians killed and mutilated a white woman (with a baby
in her arms) and her husband; masked robbers called a man to his barn at
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and cut his throat; an Italian was
found with his head split in two by a butcher's cleaver; a negress in
Lafayette, Louisiana, killed a family of six with a hatchet; a negro
farmer and his two daughters were lynched and their bodies burned by
four white men (who will probably also be lynched if caught); a girl
of eleven shot her girl friend of about the same age and killed her;
several persons were found stabbed to death; a plumber killed his
brother (also a plumber) for saying that he stole two dollars; a
murderer was shot by a posse of militia in a cornfield; a card game at
Bayonne, New Jersey, resulted in a re