I was looking at crimes in old Chicago Tribune papers and these two extremes stood out.
I love the way the paper makes it sound like the reason this 18 year old killed his 18 year old friend or lover or whatever was soley because she was seeing a guy younger than 18.
So basically Maggie and James septuagenarians are having it off behind a cop’s back.
Both of these were form the crime blotters in 1898 Chicago.
Yep even in the old days, people were killing each other
But somehow the reporting is less jolly. Consider the Chicago Daily News’ reflextion when Richard Loeb was murdered in prison by a fellow inmate in retaliation for unwanted sexual advance: “Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition.”
Even in the old days? I would say especially in the old days. And I’d be willing to bet, the older the days, the more killing went on.
I have a book about murders in Chicago in the old days (1870’s through 1920’s) called First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt, and it seems that tavern brawls were a big factor in killings in the late 19th century. It seems that it was customary to salute someone with your drink. Look at someone, raise your glass, and down the hatch. The person you saluted was supposed to raise his glass in return. If he didn’t, it was a big insult. Apparently, a lot of tavern murders were caused by drunk guys not raising their glasses fast enough.
Ah, testosterone. Always making life interesting.
Oh I agree, I recall I was doing a project for old Chicago hospitals and there was a racial incident where a bunch of white teen pushed a bunch of black teens out of windows killing a few of them.
I was like, “Geez even without guns, they’re still racial killing.”
I just thought it was interesting as much as the world’s changed in over a hundred years, people still have the same stupid reasons for killing each other. And age apparently isn’t a factor, whether they’re too naive or old enough to know better.
Times change but people and their motives remain the same. For some reason, people, especially older people, think we live in a more violent world than they have ever known. Nope, violent crime is way down across the board now and mostly way down. The 1930’s and 1980 - early 1990’s saw upswings in violent crime but it has gone down in general since then. It was probably worse back in the day because some crimes like rape and child abuse weren’t reported much at all and the forensics just weren’t there to solve murders when no one would talk. Those stories don’t surprise me at all. More ridiculously violent stories are in the Bible and almost any historical text. Calculated murder is a semi-unique human urge and a common one at that.
But, your honor, it was self defen(istration),