in its character, that it is not always distinctly apparent to the unthinking observer. Moreover, it requires careful, just and far-reaching comparison in order to measure the moral standard of a race at well-separated intervals in its career, in order that we may ascertain the differences in it. So far as I am at present aware, no such comparisons have been made in the case of the unadulterated population of whites in the city of Washington. But it is as true now as it always has been, that the contact with a naturally criminal race, if constant and long-sustained, by a superior, sounder and better race, the latter in time will, morally, slowly but surely deteriorate through the sheer force of circumstances, not to say example. The crime of the one people is almost, nay, quite certain, to involve the acts of the other, and transitory acts in time become habits, and habits define the characteristics of the whole people. As long ago as 1891, I pointed out that the ne- groes in Washington constituted but one-third of the population, yet they furnished the great bulk of the criminal cases of all kinds. The police report ending for June 25, 1890, exhibited the following terrible record sustaining what I have just stated: Assaults on policemen, 162, by whites 75, by colored 87; assaults on special officers, 25, by whites 9, by colored 16. Last year three policemen were killed by negroes, two when attempting to arrest them, and there is scarcely a year that this does not occur. The article to which I refer I published in Science (Vol. xviii, No. 445, New York, August 14, 1891; pp. 94, 95), and in it I further said that in The Star (a Washington newspaper), of December 24, 1888, it was shown that there were then in jail, awaiting trial or sentence for
