Because of the fact that the feelings of men and women for each other are deeper and more fundamental than those of any other relation, they are more subject to misfortune and tragedy.  The hatreds born from the deepest affection are most beyond control.  Then the desire of possession is overwhelming.  It would be strange if more killings did not result from the relations of men and women than from any other cause.  It is easy to understand why this is true.  It is likewise easy to understand how laws, reason and judgment are powerless to prevent.  Juries seem to understand this when women kill husbands and lovers, but a long-established code of chivalry and a cultivated attitude toward women, which is partly right and partly wrong, make it impossible to see that men are just as helpless under strong feelings as women.  No doubt a public opinion that would favor divorces on a greater number of grounds and make them easily obtainable would prevent large numbers of such killings, but the cause can not be altogether removed.

The law has long singled out killing as the greatest crime, doubtless because man prizes life first of all.  Of course every effort should be made to protect life.  Still, in measuring the character of the offender, in determining his possibilities as a useful citizen, homicide is probably one of the lesser crimes.  Many times it implies no moral turpitude, even with those who believe in moral turpitude.  It may imply very little lack of physical stability.  Homicide practically never becomes an occupation.  Most killings are accidental in the sense that they are casual and dependent on circumstances, and there is as a rule much less danger of repetition than there is of the original commission of a homicide by one of a defective nervous system who has never before committed an unlawful act.  A large number of men convicted of murder are used as “trusties” in our penal institutions, even when their imprisonment is for a long term, or for life.  This shows from the experience of prison officials that this class of offenders is, as a rule, of a better fibre than almost any other class.

Doubtless no sort of treatment will ever entirely get rid of homicide.  Brains and nervous systems are so made, that inhibitions are unable to protect in all cases.  Nations and men readily engage in killing, either from sport or because of a real or fancied wrong.  Mob psychology shows how whole communities are turned into ravenous beasts, hunting for their prey.  The world war, and all wars, show cases of mob psychology that have led large masses of men to take an active part in killing.  The pursuit of those charged with crime shows that all people like the chase when the emotions are thoroughly aroused.  Under certain impulses, communities gloat over hangings and commend judges and juries because they have the courage to hang, when, in fact, they were too cowardly not to hang and when their reason did not approve the verdict and judgment.  Men