little more rigor, outcasting the Christianized depressed castes. This action on the part of the Hindu polity has not hurt the " untouchable " converts whose state, without the least doubt, has been improved by the change of religion.

Besides directly uplifting socially submerged Hindus, missions have done and are doing a great work in inspiring the Hindus themselves to engage in the propaganda. This impetus, though indirect, is yet none the less potent. Indeed, the Christian proselyting propaganda in India is goading the Hindu community to uplift the fifty millions of human beings who for ages have been condemned to grovel at the foot of the social, moral, material, and intellectual ladder. It is demonstrating to the East-Indians that the unmerited and unpardonable disabilities inflicted by the high castes upon the depressed classes, besides keeping the latter in a sad state, are also responsible for weakening the body politic of the whole land. It is warning the people of India that the foundation layers of the Hindu social structure are rotting, exposing the superstructure to the dire danger of toppling over to destruction. This is proving instrumental in influencing the nonChristian natives educated in schools conducted by the Christian missionaries and by the Government, to set out to purify their old-time social and religious organisms. The protestant Hindu faiths, like the Brahmo and Arya Samajes, and the Sikhs, have come into the field. These more or less militant creeds are seeking to remove the disabilities of the pariahs. Thus the Hindu social conscience has been quickened to the necessity of righting the wrong that for centuries it has inflicted upon a large number of its members.

The impetus among the Hindus for the uplift of the low castes, it must be said, comes from their desire to put into operation a policy calculated to counteract the Christian missionary efforts to win the low castes out of the Hindu into the native Christian fold. The Arya Samaj, in the Punjab, more than any other Hindu religious organization, is following this principle. This sect carries on famine campaigns the same as the missionaries do, thus endeavoring to prevent their starving confreres from going to the Christian workers for relief. The Arya Samaj also convenes meetings from time to time in various villages and towns, where the high-caste Aryans dine at the same table with members of the low castes, thus demonstrating their real sympathy with the propaganda to uplift the socially submerged classes. The Brahmo Samaj is conducting a regular “Depressed Classes Mission" in Southern India, along the lines of the Christian workers. This mission was founded on October 18, 1906, at Bombay. In four years the organization has succeeded in opening many branch associations,

extending as far south as Mangalore and as far east as Madras. The largest and most typical work of this Mission is being done at Bombay. Here a number of activities are engaged in. It is the idea of the people interested in this propaganda to reach out in every direction that may contribute to the uplift of the unfortunate human beings it is calculated to help. Thus they provide free education, secure lucrative positions for their wards, remedy their social disabilities, and inculcate in them the ideals of liberal religion, high personal character, and good citizenship. In Bombay a number of institutions have been established where this work is being carried on. The principal one is the Middle School at Parel, where seven teachers are engaged in educating one hundred and seventy-five pupils recruited from the depressed classes. Other day and night schools have been started in various localities in and about Bombay, and Sunday services are conducted, the people singing hymns and listening to moral stories about the heroes of Hindostan. The industrial work consists of book binding, shoemaking, and, for the girls, sewing and simple lessons in domestic economy. Visitation work in the homes is done by five helpers maintained by private philanthropists. Branches of this Society have been formed in Poona, Manmad, Igatpuri, Indore, Akolal, Amraoti, Dapoli, Mahableshwar, Nasik, Mangalore, and Madras; all of them are in a fairly flourishing condition and are doing much practical work amongst the pariahs.

But the Depressed Classes Mission in Southern India, and the Arya Samaj and Sikh Shudhi Sabhas, as they are called, after all the appreciation they deserve is given them, are very feeble efforts on the part of the Hindu community to do justice to the teeming, downtrodden millions. When compared with the organized work that hundreds of trained American and European men and women missionaries are doing all over India to convert and uplift the "untouchables," these non-Christian endeavors appear very poor indeed. However, if to copy is to admire, these Hindu efforts pay a great-and a deserved compliment to the Christian missionary work that is bringing light and happiness to people who, for many generations, have abided in abysmal darkness. It is a blessed work indeed.

THE ECONOMIC CONDITION OF

NEGROES IN THE NORTH

TENDENCIES DOWNWARD

SECOND PAPER: NEGRO CRIMINAL STATISTICS'

BY R. R. WRIGHT, JR.

Y former series of articles on Northern conditions dealt chiefly with the tendencies of the Negro upward. They, of course, discusssed only one phase of the conditions prevalent in the race at the North-the improvment in housing, business, trades, etc. The rapid growth of American cities has brought about many serious pathological conditions in our social life. The rapid concentration into small areas of hundreds of thousands of people, of different antecedents and training, dependent upon certain large industries, has caused the growth of social problems practically unknown in this country a century ago. That Negroes should help to make up some of these problems is only natural. That they, largely ex-slaves or the children of ex-slaves, only a generation removed from their slavery, should often make up a larger proportion of the problem than their numbers seem to warrant, is possibly to be expected. Nearly seventy per cent of the Negroes of the North live in the cities, and fully forty per cent of them are in the larger cities, such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants. Here these Negroes are exposed to the severest economic competition; and, in the struggle which they must undergo, it is but natural to expect that the process of eliminating the unfit will develop among them a large amount of poverty and crime. The transition from slavery to freedom would in itself bring this about. But when to this transition is added also the transfer from a simple country environment to a complex city one, we must necessarily expect an excess of pathological situations.

In the first article of this series (published March, 1910,) I discussed certain general principles of criminology which should be kept

1 The first paper in Mr. Wright's second series of articles on Northern Negroes appeared in the SOUTHERN WORKMAN for March, 1910. His first series entitled "The Economic Condition of Negroes in the North" appeared in Dec. 1907, March, July, Sept., Nov., 1908, and Jan., Mar., and Apr., 1909.

in mind by the student of crime among Negroes, and which show how difficult it is to compare the criminality of Negroes with that of whites, or even with that of other Negroes in different localities. In our efforts to obtain reliable facts concerning crime among Negroes, the first thing with which we are confronted is the scarcity of data. In most of the Northern cities the Negro population has been of such comparative numerical unimportance that no separate statistics have been kept; those cities which keep statistics of Negroes have begun to do so only recently; and they keep such meagre data that it is impossible to make use of them for scientific purposes.

Some time ago the writer undertook a wide correspondence with chiefs of police, sheriffs, jailors, district attorneys, clerks of criminal courts, wardens of penitentiaries, and others, so as to secure accurate information. The following extracts from the replies will give some idea of the difficulty of obtaining criminal statistics of Negroes:

The superintendent of police, Boston, Massachusetts, wrote "We have no statistics on the subject."

The sheriff, Albany, New York - "I would gladly furnish you with the information desired, but it is not easily accessible to me.”

The district attorney, New York County, N. Y.-" I have no statistics that show a separation of Negro from white cases."

The clerk of Camden County, New Jersey "I am unable to furnish the statistics you desire."

The prosecuting attorney, Columbus, Ohio-"In this county we have no statistics to tell the nationality of a man charged with crime." The chief of police, Cincinnati, Ohio -"Our records are so kept that we cannot answer most of your questions."

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From Hamilton, Ohio —“The sheriff has no positive record of arrests and convictions wherein the nationality of persons charged with crime is kept."

The prosecuting attorney, Springfield, Ohio-" As to arrests, I am afraid, at the very best, you could get only an estimate.”

The chief of police, St. Louis, Missouri-" It would be almost impossible to obtain information regarding convictions."

The State Bureau of Criminal Statistics, Lansing, Michigan "We have no data. We do not keep any special tab on Negroes." The sheriff, St. Paul, Minnesota "I am unable to furnish you with information."

The chief of police, Des Moines, Iowa -"We do not keep any records."

The district attorney, Los Angeles, California -" We have never kept a record of color."

From Pittsburg, Pennsylvania "We have no record of arrests of Negroes."

The above answers give some idea of the difficulty of getting accurate information, and incidentally show that most of what is written about Negro crime in large cities is mere guess work, or impressions of observers, and cannot have any final scientific value for the sociologist.

The three largest cities-New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia -do make some sort of report regarding Negro arrests. Yet their methods are so different that only the meagerest comparison is possible. The following table will show the number of arrests in these three cities for a term of years:

NUMBER OF ARRESTS IN NEW YORK, CHICAGO, AND PHILADELPHIA FOR A TERM OF YEARS

The above table shows that there is no uniformity in the increase in Negro arrests in the cities. In proportion to population in 1900, Chicago had a larger number of arrests of Negroes than New York or Philadelphia. Still, arrests are not sufficient evidence upon which to compare the criminal tendencies in these three cities. The effect of the panic of 1907-1908 is clearly seen in the increased arrests in 1908 in all these cities.

INCREASE OF NEGRO CRIME

The figures of the United States Census for 1910 are not yet available for purposes of comparing the growth of Negro populations. A conservative estimate of the Negro population of Chicago would be 60,000; of New York,' 85,000; Philadelphia, 85,000. Comparing the increase in population with the increase in arrests, it is not clear that in proportion to the Negro population the number of arrests of Negroes has increased very greatly during the past decade. In fact it seems to have decreased in both New York and Chicago. The proportion of arrests to population was 1 to 9 in New York in 1900, whereas it would be about

1 The Health Department of New York estimates the Negro population at 89,700 in 1910.