Chapter 10: The Remedy 147 (2)

"Drink did it! drink did it," he sobbed. Then bowing his face in his
hands, he asked: "Is it true, did I kill her? Oh, my God, my God!" For a
moment he seemed to forget the awful fate that awaited him, and his body
swayed to and fro with grief. Some one seized me by the shoulder and
hurled me back, and Smith fell writhing to the ground in terror as four
men seized his arms to drag him to the float on which he was to be
exhibited before he was finally burned at the stake.

I followed the procession and wept aloud as I saw little children of my
own race follow the unfortunate man and taunt him with jeers. Even at
the stake, children of both sexes and colors gathered in groups, and
when the father of the murdered child raised the hissing iron with which
he was about to torture the helpless victim, the children became as
frantic as the grown people and struggled forward to obtain places of
advantage.

It was terrible. One little tot scarcely older than little Myrtle Vance
clapped her baby hands as her father held her on his shoulders above the
heads of the people.

"For God's sake," I shouted, "send the children home."

"No, no," shouted a hundred maddened voices; "let them learn a lesson."

I love children, but as I looked about the little faces distorted with
passion and the bloodshot eyes of the cruel parents who held them high
in their arms, I thanked God that I have none of my own.

As the hot iron sank deep into poor Henry's flesh a hideous yell rent
the air, and, with a sound as terrible as the cry, of lost souls on
judgment day, 20,000 maddened people took up the victim's cry of agony
and a prolonged howl of maddened glee rent the air.

No one was himself now. Every man, woman and child in that awful crowd
was worked up to a greater frenzy than that which actuated Smith's
horrible crime. The people were capable of any new atrocity now, and as
Smith's yells became more and more frequent, it was difficult to hold
the crowd back, so anxious were the savages to participate in the
sickening tortures.

For half an hour I tried to pray as the beads of agony rolled down my
forehead and bathed my face.

For an instant a hush spread over the people. I could stand no more, and
with a superhuman effort dashed through the compact mass of humanity and
stood at the foot of the burning scaffold.

"In the name of God," I cried, "I command you to cease this torture."

The heavy butt of a Winchester rifle descended on my head and I fell to
the ground. Rough hands seized me and angry men bore me away, and I was
thankful.

At the outskirts of the crowd I was attacked again, and then several
men, no doubt glad to get away from the fearful place, escorted me to my
home, where I was allowed to take a small amount of clothing. A jeering
crowd gathered without, and when I appeared at the door ready hands
seized me and I was placed upon a rail, and, with curses and oaths,
taken to the railway station and placed upon a train. As the train moved
out some one thrust a roll of bills into my hand and said, "God bless
you, but it was no use."

When asked if he should ever return to Paris, Mr. King said: "I shall never go south again. The impressions of that awful day will stay with me forever."

LYNCHING OF INNOCENT MEN

(Lynched on Account of Relationship)

If no other reason appealed to the sober sense of the American people to check the growth of Lynch Law, the absolute unreliability and recklessness of the mob in inflicting punishment for crimes done, should do so. Several instances of this spirit have occurred in the year past. In Louisiana, near New Orleans, in July, 1893, Roselius Julian, a colored man, shot and killed a white judge, named Victor Estopinal. The cause of the shooting has never been definitely ascertained. It is claimed that the Negro resented an insult to his wife, and the killing of the white man was an act of a Negro (who dared) to defend his home. The judge was killed in the court house, and Julian, heavily armed, made his escape to the swamps near the city. He has never been apprehended, nor has any information ever been gleaned as to his whereabouts. A mob determined to secure the fugitive murderer and burn him alive. The swamps were hunted through and through in vain, when, being unable to wreak their revenge upon the murderer, the mob turned its attention to his unfortunate relatives. Dispatches from New Orleans, dated September 19, 1893, described the affair as follows:

Posses were immediately organized and the surrounding country was
scoured, but the search was fruitless so far as the real criminal was
concerned. The mother, three brothers and two sisters of the Negro were
arrested yesterday at the Black Ridge in the rear of the city by the
police and taken to the little jail on Judge Estopinal's place about
Southport, because of the belief that they were succoring the fugitive.

About 11 o'clock twenty-five men, some armed with rifles and shotguns,
came up to the jail. They unlocked the door and held a conference among
themselves as to what they should do. Some were in favor of hanging the
five, while others insisted that only two of the brothers should be
strung up. This was finally agreed to, and the two doomed negroes were
hurried to a pasture one hundred yards distant, and there asked to take
their last chance of saving their lives by making a confession, but the
Negroes made no reply. They were then told to kneel down and pray. One
did so, the other remained standing, but both prayed fervently. The
taller Negro was then hoisted up. The shorter Negro stood gazing at the
horrible death of his brother without flinching. Five minutes later he
was also hanged. The mob decided to take the remaining brother out to
Camp Parapet and hang him there. The other two were to be taken out and
flogged, with an order to get out of the parish in less than half an
hour. The third brother, Paul, was taken out to the camp, which is about
a mile distant in the interior, and there he was hanged to a tree.

Another young man, who was in no way related to Julian, who perhaps did not even know the man and who was entirely innocent of any offense in connection therewith, was murdered by the same mob. The same paper says:

During the search for Julian on Saturday one branch of the posse visited
the house of a Negro family in the neighborhood of Camp Parapet, and
failing to find the object of their search, tried to induce John Willis,
a young Negro, to disclose the whereabouts of Julian. He refused to do
so, or could not do so, and was kicked to death by the gang.

AN INDIANA CASE

Almost equal to the ferocity of the mob which killed the three brothers, Julian and the unoffending, John Willis, because of the murder of Judge Estopinal, was the action of a mob near Vincennes, Ind. In this case a wealthy colored man, named Allen Butler, who was well known in the community, and enjoyed the confidence and respect of the entire country, was made the victim of a mob and hung because his son had become unduly intimate with a white girl who was a servant around his house. There was no pretense that the facts were otherwise than as here stated. The woman lived at Butler's house as a servant, and she and Butler's son fell in love with each other, and later it was found that the girl was in a delicate condition. It was claimed, but with how much truth no one has ever been able to tell, that the father had procured an abortion, or himself had operated on the girl, and that she had left the house to go back to her home. It was never claimed that the father was in any way responsible for the action of his son, but the authorities procured the arrest of both father and son, and at the preliminary examination the father gave bail to appear before the Grand Jury when it should convene. On the same night, however, the mob took the matter in hand and with the intention of hanging the son. It assembled near Sumner, while the boy, who had been unable to give bail, was lodged in jail at Lawrenceville. As it was impossible to reach Lawrenceville and hang the son, the leaders of the mob concluded they would go to Butler's house and hang him. Butler was found at his home, taken out by the mob and hung to a tree. This was in the lawabiding state of Indiana, which furnished the United States its last president and which claims all the honor, pride and glory of northern civilization. None of the leaders of the mob were apprehended, and no steps whatever were taken to bring the murderers to justice.

KILLED FOR HIS STEPFATHER'S CRIME

An account has been given of the cremation of Henry Smith, at Paris, Texas, for the murder of the infant child of a man named Vance. It would appear that human ferocity was not sated when it vented itself upon a human being by burning his eyes out, by thrusting a red-hot iron down his throat, and then by burning his body to ashes. Henry Smith, the victim of these savage orgies, was beyond all the power of torture, but a few miles outside of Paris, some members of the community concluded that it would be proper to kill a stepson named William Butler as a partial penalty for the original crime. This young man, against whom no word has ever been said, and who was in fact an orderly, peaceable boy, had been watched with the severest scrutiny by members of the mob who believed he knew something of the whereabouts of Smith. He declared from the very first that he did not know where his stepfather was, which statement was well proven to be a fact after the discovery of Smith in Arkansas, whence he had fled through swamps and woods and unfrequented places. Yet Butler was apprehended, placed under arrest, and on the night of February 6, taken out on Hickory Creek, five miles southeast of Paris, and hung for his stepfather's crime. After his body was suspended in the air, the mob filled it with bullets.

LYNCHED BECAUSE THE JURY ACQUITTED HIM

The entire system of the judiciary of this country is in the hands of white people. To this add the fact of the inherent prejudice against colored people, and it will be clearly seen that a white jury is certain to find a Negro prisoner guilty if there is the least evidence to warrant such a finding.

Meredith Lewis was arrested in Roseland, La., in July of last year. A white jury found him not guilty of the crime of murder wherewith he stood charged. This did not suit the mob. A few nights after the verdict was rendered, and he declared to be innocent, a mob gathered in his vicinity and went to his house. He was called, and suspecting nothing, went outside. He was seized and hurried off to a convenient spot and hanged by the neck until he was dead for the murder of a woman of which the jury had said he was innocent.

LYNCHED AS A SCAPEGOAT

Wednesday, July 5, about 10 o'clock in the morning, a terrible crime was committed within four miles of Wickliffe, Ky. Two girls, Mary and Ruby Ray, were found murdered a short distance from their home. The news of this terrible cowardly murder of two helpless young girls spread like wild fire, and searching parties scoured the territory surrounding Wickliffe and Bardwell. Two of the searching party, the Clark brothers, saw a man enter the Dupoyster cornfield; they got their guns and fired at the fleeing figure, but without effect; he got away, but they said he was a white man or nearly so. The search continued all day without effect, save the arrest of two or three strange Negroes. A bloodhound was brought from the penitentiary and put on the trail which he followed from the scene of the murder to the river and into the boat of a fisherman named Gordon. Gordon stated that he had ferried one man and only one across the river about about half past six the evening of July 5; that his passenger sat in front of him, and he was a white man or a very bright mulatto, who could not be told from a white man. The bloodhound was put across the river in the boat, and he struck a trail again at Bird's Point on the Missouri side, ran about three hundred yards to the cottage of a white farmer named Grant and there lay down refusing to go further.

Thursday morning a brakesman on a freight train going out of Sikeston, Mo., discovered a Negro stealing a ride; he ordered him off and had hot words which terminated in a fight. The brakesman had the Negro arrested. When arrested, between 11 and 12 o'clock, he had on a dark woolen shirt, light pants and coat, and no vest. He had twelve dollars in paper, two silver dollars and ninety-five cents in change; he had also four rings in his pockets, a knife and a razor which were rusted and stained. The Sikeston authorities immediately jumped to the conclusion that this man was the murderer for whom the Kentuckians across the river were searching. They telegraphed to Bardwell that their prisoner had on no coat, but wore a blue vest and pants which would perhaps correspond with the coat found at the scene of the murder, and that the names of the murdered girls were in the rings found in his possession.

As soon as this news was received, the sheriffs of Ballard and Carlisle counties and a posse(?) of thirty well-armed and determined Kentuckians, who had pledged their word the prisoner should be taken back to the scene of the supposed crime, to be executed there if proved to be the guilty man, chartered a train and at nine o'clock Thursday night started for Sikeston. Arriving there two hours later, the sheriff at Sikeston, who had no warrant for the prisoner's arrest and detention, delivered him into the hands of the mob without authority for so doing, and accompanied them to Bird's Point. The prisoner gave his name as Miller, his home at Springfield, and said he had never been in Kentucky in his life, but the sheriff turned him over to the mob to be taken to Wickliffe, that Frank Gordon, the fisherman, who had put a man across the river might identify him.

In other words, the protection of the law was withdrawn from C.J. Miller, and he was given to a mob by this sheriff at Sikeston, who knew that the prisoner's life depended on one man's word. After an altercation with the train men, who wanted another $50 for taking the train back to Bird's Point, the crowd arrived there at three o'clock, Friday morning. Here was anchored _The Three States_, a ferryboat plying between Wickliffe, Ky, Cairo, Ill., and Bird's Point, Mo. This boat left Cairo at twelve o'clock, Thursday, with nearly three hundred of Cairo's best(?) citizens and thirty kegs of beer on board. This was consumed while the crowd and the bloodhound waited for the prisoner.

When the prisoner was on board _The Three States_ the dog was turned loose, and after moving aimlessly around, followed the crowd to where Miller sat handcuffed and there stopped. The crowd closed in on the pair and insisted that the brute had identified him because of that action. When the boat reached Wickliffe, Gordon, the fisherman, was called on to say whether the prisoner was the man he ferried over the river the day of the murder.

The sheriff of Ballard County informed him, sternly that if the prisoner was not the man, he (the fisherman) would be held responsible as knowing who the guilty man was. Gordon stated before, that the man he ferried across was a white man or a bright colored man; Miller was a dark brown skinned man, with kinky hair, "neither yellow nor black," says the _Cairo Evening Telegram_ of Friday, July 7. The fisherman went up to Miller from behind, looked at him without speaking for fully five minutes, then slowly said, "Yes, that's the man I crossed over." This was about six o'clock, Friday morning, and the crowd wished to hang Miller then and there. But Mr. Ray, the father of the girls, insisted that he be taken to Bardwell, the county seat of Ballard, and twelve miles inland. He said he thought a white man committed the crime, and that he was not satisfied that was the man. They took him to Bardwell and at ten o'clock, this same excited, unauthorized mob undertook to determine Miller's guilt. One of the Clark brothers who shot at a fleeing man in the Dupoyster cornfield, said the prisoner was the same man; the other said he was not, but the testimony of the first was accepted. A colored woman who had said she gave breakfast to a colored man clad in a blue flannel suit the morning of the murder, said positively that she had never seen Miller before. The gold rings found in his possession had no names in them, as had been asserted, and Mr. Ray said they did not belong to his daughters. Meantime a funeral pyre for the purpose of burning Miller to death had been erected in the center of the village. While the crowd swayed by passion was clamoring that he be burnt, Miller stepped forward and made the following statement: "My name is C.J. Miller. I am from Springfield, Ill.; my wife lives at 716 N. 2d Street. I am here among you today, looked upon as one of the most brutal men before the people. I stand here surrounded by men who are excited, men who are not willing to let the law take its course, and as far as the crime is concerned, I have committed no crime, and certainly no crime gross enough to deprive me of my life and liberty to walk upon the green earth."

A telegram was sent to the chief of the police at Springfield, Ill., asking if one C.J. Miller lived there. An answer in the negative was returned. A few hours after, it was ascertained that a man named Miller, and his wife, did live at the number the prisoner gave in his speech, but the information came to Bardwell too late to do the prisoner any good. Miller was taken to jail, every stitch of clothing literally torn from his body and examined again. On the lower left side of the bosom of his shirt was found a dark reddish spot about the size of a dime. Miller said it was paint which he had gotten on him at Jefferson Barracks. This spot was only on the right side, and could not be seen from the under side at all, thus showing it had not gone through the cloth as blood or any liquid substance would do.

Chief-of-Police Mahaney, of Cairo, Ill., was with the prisoner, and he took his knife and scraped at the spot, particles of which came off in his hand. Miller told them to take his clothes to any expert, and if the spot was shown to be blood, they might do anything they wished with him. They took his clothes away and were gone some time. After a while they were brought back and thrown into the cell without a word. It is needless to say that if the spot had been found to be blood, that fact would have been announced, and the shirt retained as evidence. Meanwhile numbers of rough, drunken men crowded into the cell and tried to force a confession of the deed from the prisoner's lips. He refused to talk save to reiterate his innocence. To Mr. Mahaney, who talked seriously and kindly to him, telling him the mob meant to burn and torture him at three o'clock, Miller said: "Burning and torture here lasts but a little while, but if I die with a lie on my soul, I shall be tortured forever. I am innocent." For more than three hours, all sorts of pressure in the way of threats, abuse and urging, was brought to bear to force him to confess to the murder and thus justify the mob in its deed of murder. Miller remained firm; but as the hour drew near, and the crowd became more impatient, he asked for a priest. As none could be procured, he then asked for a Methodist minister, who came, prayed with the doomed man, baptized him and exhorted Miller to confess. To keep up the flagging spirits of the dense crowd around the jail, the rumor went out more than once, that Miller had confessed. But the solemn assurance of the minister, chief-of-police, and leading editor--who were with Miller all along--is that this rumor is absolutely false.

At three o'clock the mob rushed to the jail to secure the prisoner. Mr. Ray had changed his mind about the promised burning; he was still in doubt as to the prisoner's guilt. He again addressed the crowd to that effect, urging them not to burn Miller, and the mob heeded him so far, that they compromised on hanging instead of burning, which was agreed to by Mr. Ray. There was a loud yell, and a rush was made for the prisoner. He was stripped naked, his clothing literally torn from his body, and his shirt was tied around his loins. Some one declared the rope was a "white man's death," and a log-chain, nearly a hundred feet in length, weighing over one hundred pounds, was placed round Miller's neck and body, and he was led and dragged through the streets of the village in that condition followed by thousands of people. He fainted from exhaustion several times, but was supported to the platform where they first intended burning him.

The chain was hooked around his neck, a man climbed the telegraph pole and the other end of the chain was passed up to him and made fast to the cross-arm. Others brought a long forked stick which Miller was made to straddle. By this means he was raised several feet from the ground and then let fall. The first fall broke his neck, but he was raised in this way and let fall a second time. Numberless shots were fired into the dangling body, for most of that crowd were heavily armed, and had been drinking all day.

Miller's body hung thus exposed from three to five o'clock, during which time, several photographs of him as he hung dangling at the end of the chain were taken, and his toes and fingers were cut off. His body was taken down, placed on the platform, the torch applied, and in a few moments there was nothing left of C.J. Miller save a few bones and ashes. Thus perished another of the many victims of Lynch Law, but it is the honest and sober belief of many who witnessed the scene that an innocent man has been barbarously and shockingly put to death in the glare of the nineteenth-century civilization, by those who profess to believe in Christianity, law and order.

5

LYNCHED FOR ANYTHING OR NOTHING

(_Lynched for Wife Beating_)

In nearly all communities wife beating is punishable with a fine, and in no community is it made a felony. Dave Jackson, of Abita, La., was a colored man who had beaten his wife. He had not killed her, nor seriously wounded her, but as Louisiana lynchers had not filled out their quota of crimes, his case was deemed of sufficient importance to apply the method of that barbarous people. He was in the custody of the officials, but the mob went to the jail and took him out in front of the prison and hanged him by the neck until he was dead. This was in Nov. 1893.

HANGED FOR STEALING HOGS

Details are very meagre of a lynching which occurred near Knox Point, La., on the twenty-fourth of October, 1893. Upon one point, however, there was no uncertainty, and that is, that the persons lynched were Negroes. It was claimed that they had been stealing hogs, but even this claim had not been subjected to the investigation of a court. That matter was not considered necessary. A few of the neighbors who had lost hogs suspected these men were responsible for their loss, and made up their minds to furnish an example for others to be warned by. The two men were secured by a mob and hanged.

LYNCHED FOR NO OFFENSE

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of this record of lynch law for the year 1893, is the remarkable fact that five human beings were lynched and that the matter was considered of so little importance that the powerful press bureaus of the country did not consider the matter of enough importance to ascertain the causes for which they were hanged. It tells the world, with perhaps greater emphasis than any other feature of the record, that Lynch Law has become so common in the United States that the finding of the dead body of a Negro, suspended between heaven and earth to the limb of a tree, is of so slight importance that neither the civil authorities nor press agencies consider the matter worth investigating. July 21, in Shelby County, Tenn., a colored man by the name of Charles Martin was lynched. July 30, at Paris, Mo., a colored man named William Steen shared the same fate. December 28, Mack Segars was announced to have been lynched at Brantley, Alabama. August 31, at Yarborough, Texas, and on September 19, at Houston, a colored man was found lynched, but so little attention was paid to the matter that not only was no record made as to why these last two men were lynched, but even their names were not given. The dispatches simply stated that an unknown Negro was found lynched in each case.

There are friends of humanity who feel their souls shrink from any compromise with murder, but whose deep and abiding reverence for womanhood causes them to hesitate in giving their support to this crusade against Lynch Law, out of fear that they may encourage the miscreants whose deeds are worse than murder. But to these friends it must appear certain that these five men could not have been guilty of any terrible crime. They were simply lynched by parties of men who had it in their power to kill them, and who chose to avenge some fancied wrong by murder, rather than submit their grievances to court.

LYNCHED BECAUSE THEY WERE SAUCY

At Moberly, Mo., February 18 and at Fort Madison, S.C., June 2, both in 1892, a record was made in the line of lynching which should certainly appeal to every humanitarian who has any regard for the sacredness of human life. John Hughes, of Moberly, and Isaac Lincoln, of Fort Madison, and Will Lewis in Tullahoma, Tenn., suffered death for no more serious charge than that they "were saucy to white people." In the days of slavery it was held to be a very serious matter for a colored person to fail to yield the sidewalk at the demand of a white person, and it will not be surprising to find some evidence of this intolerance existing in the days of freedom. But the most that could be expected as a penalty for acting or speaking saucily to a white person would be a slight physical chastisement to make the Negro "know his place" or an arrest and fine. But Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina chose to make precedents in their cases and as a result both men, after being charged with their offense and apprehended, were taken by a mob and lynched. The civil authorities, who in either case would have been very quick to satisfy the aggrieved white people had they complained and brought the prisoners to court, by imposing proper penalty upon them, did not feel it their duty to make any investigation after the Negroes were killed. They were dead and out of the way and as no one would be called upon to render an account for their taking off, the matter was dismissed from the public mind.

LYNCHED FOR A QUARREL

One of the most notable instances of lynching for the year 1893, occurred about the twentieth of September. It was notable for the fact that the mayor of the city exerted every available power to protect the victim of the lynching from the mob. In his splendid endeavor to uphold the law, the mayor called out the troops, and the result was a deadly fight between the militia and mob, nine of the mob being killed. The trouble occurred at Roanoke, Va. It is frequently claimed that lynchings occur only in sparsely settled districts, and, in fact, it is a favorite plea of governors and reverend apologists to couple two arrant falsehoods, stating that lynchings occur only because of assaults upon white women, and that these assaults occur and the lynchings follow in thinly inhabited districts where the power of the law is entirely inadequate to meet the emergency. This Roanoke case is a double refutation, for it not only disproves the alleged charge that the Negro assaulted a white woman, as was telegraphed all over the country at the time, but it also shows conclusively that even in one of the largest cities of the old state of Virginia, one of the original thirteen colonies, which prides itself of being the mother of presidents, it was possible for a lynching to occur in broad daylight under circumstances of revolting savagery.

When the news first came from Roanoke of the contemplated lynching, it was stated that a big burly Negro had assaulted a white woman, that he had been apprehended and that the citizens were determined to summarily dispose of his case. Mayor Trout was a man who believed in maintaining the majesty of the law, and who at once gave notice that no lynching would be permitted in Roanoke, and that the Negro, whose name was Smith, being in the custody of the law, should be dealt with according to law; but the mob did not pay any attention to the brave words of the mayor. It evidently thought that it was only another case of swagger, such as frequently characterizes lynching episodes. Mayor Trout, finding immense crowds gathering about the city, and fearing an attempt to lynch Smith, called out the militia and stationed them at the jail.

It was known that the woman refused to accuse Smith of assaulting her, and that his offense consisted in quarreling with her about the change of money in a transaction in which he bought something from her market booth. Both parties lost their temper, and the result was a row from which Smith had to make his escape. At once the old cry was sounded that the woman had been assaulted, and in a few hours all the town was wild with people thirsting for the assailant's blood. The further incidents of that day may well be told by a dispatch from Roanoke under date of the twenty-first of September and published in the _Chicago Record_. It says:

It is claimed by members of the military company that they frequently
warned the mob to keep away from the jail, under penalty of being shot.
Capt. Bird told them he was under orders to protect the prisoner whose
life the mob so eagerly sought, and come what may he would not allow him
to be taken by the mob. To this the crowd replied with hoots and
derisive jeers. The rioters appeared to become frenzied at the
determined stand taken by the men and Captain Bird, and finally a crowd
of excited men made a rush for the side door of the jail. The captain
directed his men to drive the would-be lynchers back.

At this moment the mob opened fire on the soldiers. This appeared for a
moment to startle the captain and his men. But it was only for a moment.
Then he coolly gave the command: "Ready! aim! fire!" The company obeyed
to the instant, and poured a volley of bullets into that part of the
mob which was trying to batter down the side door of the jail.

The rioters fell back before the fire of the militia, leaving one man
writhing in the agonies of death at the doorstep. There was a lull for a
moment. Then the word was quickly passed through the throng in front of
the jail and down the street that a man was killed. Then there was an
awful rush toward the little band of soldiers. Excited men were yelling
like demons.

The fight became general, and ere it was ended nine men were dead and
more than forty wounded.

This stubborn stand on behalf of law and order disconcerted the crowd and it fell back in disorder. It did not long remain inactive but assembled again for a second assault. Having only a small band of militia, and knowing they would be absolutely at the mercy of the thousands who were gathering to wreak vengeance upon them, the mayor ordered them to disperse and go to their homes, and he himself, having been wounded, was quietly conveyed out of the city.

The next day the mob grew in numbers and its rage increased in its intensity. There was no longer any doubt that Smith, innocent as he was of any crime, would be killed, for with the mayor out of the city and the governor of the state using no effort to control the mob, it was only a question of a few hours when the assault would be repeated and its victim put to death. All this happened as per programme. The description of that morning's carnival appeared in the paper above quoted and reads as follows:

A squad of twenty men took the negro Smith from three policemen just
before five o'clock this morning and hanged him to a hickory limb on
Ninth Avenue, in the residence section of the city. They riddled his
body with bullets and put a placard on it saying: "This is Mayor Trout's
friend." A coroner's jury of Bismel was summoned and viewed the body and
rendered a verdict of death at the hands of unknown men. Thousands of
persons visited the scene of the lynching between daylight and eight
o'clock when the body was cut down. After the jury had completed its
work the body was placed in the hands of officers, who were unable to
keep back the mob. Three hundred men tried to drag the body through the
streets of the town, but the Rev. Dr. Campbell of the First Presbyterian
church and Capt. R.B. Moorman, with pleas and by force prevented them.

Capt. Moorman hired a wagon and the body was put in it. It was then
conveyed to the bank of the Roanoke, about two miles from the scene of
the lynching. Here the body was dragged from the wagon by ropes for
about 200 yards and burned. Piles of dry brushwood were brought, and the
body was placed upon it, and more brushwood piled on the body, leaving
only the head bare. The whole pile was then saturated with coal oil and
a match was applied. The body was consumed within an hour. The cremation
was witnessed by several thousand people. At one time the mob threatened
to burn the Negro in Mayor Trout's yard.

Thus did the people of Roanoke, Va., add this measure of proof to maintain our contention that it is only necessary to charge a Negro with a crime in order to secure his certain death. It was well known in the city before he was killed that he had not assaulted the woman with whom he had had the trouble, but he dared to have an altercation with a white woman, and he must pay the penalty. For an offense which would not in any civilized community have brought upon him a punishment greater than a fine of a few dollars, this unfortunate Negro was hung, shot and burned.

SUSPECTED, INNOCENT AND LYNCHED

Five persons, Benjamin Jackson, his wife, Mahala Jackson, his mother-in-law, Lou Carter, Rufus Bigley, were lynched near Quincy, Miss., the charge against them being suspicion of well poisoning. It appears from the newspaper dispatches at that time that a family by the name of Woodruff was taken ill in September of 1892. As a result of their illness one or more of the family are said to have died, though that matter is not stated definitely. It was suspected that the cause of their illness was the existence of poison in the water, some miscreant having placed poison in the well. Suspicion pointed to a colored man named Benjamin Jackson who was at once arrested. With him also were arrested his wife and mother-in-law and all were held on the same charge.

The matter came up for judicial investigation, but as might have been expected, the white people concluded it was unnecessary to wait the result of the investigation--that it was preferable to hang the accused first and try him afterward. By this method of procedure, the desired result was always obtained--the accused was hanged. Accordingly Benjamin Jackson was taken from the officers by a crowd of about two hundred people, while the inquest was being held, and hanged. After the killing of Jackson, the inquest was continued to ascertain the possible connection of the other persons charged with the crime. Against the wife and mother-in-law of the unfortunate man there was not the slightest evidence and the coroner's jury was fair enough to give them their liberty. They were declared innocent and returned to their homes. But this did not protect the women from the demands of the Christian white people of that section of the country. In any other land and with any other people, the fact that these two accused persons were women would have pleaded in their favor for protection and fair play, but that had no weight with the Mississippi Christians nor the further fact that a jury of white men had declared them innocent. The hanging of one victim on an unproven charge did not begin to satisfy the mob in its bloodthirsty demands and the result was that even after the women had been discharged, they were at once taken in charge by a mob, which hung them by the neck until they were dead.

Still the mob was not satisfied. During the coroner's investigation the name of a fourth person, Rufus Bigley, was mentioned. He was acquainted with the Jacksons and that fact, together with some testimony adduced at the inquest, prompted the mob to decide that he should die also. Search was at once made for him and the next day he was apprehended. He was not given over into the hands of the civil authorities for trial nor did the coroner's inquest find that he was guilty, but the mob was quite sufficient in itself. After finding Bigley, he was strung up to a tree and his body left hanging, where it was found next day. It may be remarked here in passing that this instance of the moral degradation of the people of Mississippi did not excite any interest in the public at large. American Christianity heard of this awful affair and read of its details and neither press nor pulpit gave the matter more than a passing comment. Had it occurred in the wilds of interior Africa, there would have been an outcry from the humane people of this country against the savagery which would so mercilessly put men and women to death. But it was an evidence of American civilization to be passed by unnoticed, to be denied or condoned as the requirements of any future emergency might determine.

LYNCHED FOR AN ATTEMPTED ASSAULT

With only a little more aggravation than that of Smith who quarreled at Roanoke with the market woman, was the assault which operated as the incentive to a most brutal lynching in Memphis, Tenn. Memphis is one of the queen cities of the south, with a population of about seventy thousand souls--easily one of the twenty largest, most progressive and wealthiest cities of the United States. And yet in its streets there occurred a scene of shocking savagery which would have disgraced the Congo. No woman was harmed, no serious indignity suffered. Two women driving to town in a wagon, were suddenly accosted by Lee Walker. He claimed that he demanded something to eat. The women claimed that he attempted to assault them. They gave such an alarm that he ran away. At once the dispatches spread over the entire country that a big, burly Negro had brutally assaulted two women. Crowds began to search for the alleged fiend. While hunting him they shot another Negro dead in his tracks for refusing to stop when ordered to do so. After a few days Lee Walker was found, and put in jail in Memphis until the mob there was ready for him.

The _Memphis Commercial_ of Sunday, July 23, contains a full account of the tragedy from which the following extracts are made:

At 12 o'clock last night, Lee Walker, who attempted to outrage Miss
Mollie McCadden, last Tuesday morning, was taken from the county jail
and hanged to a telegraph pole just north of the prison. All day rumors
were afloat that with nightfall an attack would be made upon the jail,
and as everyone anticipated that a vigorous resistance would be made, a
conflict between the mob and the authorities was feared.

At 10 o'clock Capt. O'Haver, Sergt. Horan and several patrolmen were on
hand, but they could do nothing with the crowd. An attack by the mob was
made on the door in the south wall, and it yielded. Sheriff McLendon and
several of his men threw themselves into the breach, but two or three of
the storming party shoved by. They were seized by the police, but were
not subdued, the officers refraining from using their clubs. The entire
mob might at first have been dispersed by ten policemen who would use
their clubs, but the sheriff insisted that no violence be done.

The mob got an iron rail and used it as a battering ram against the
lobby doors. Sheriff McLendon tried to stop them, and some one of the
mob knocked him down with a chair. Still he counseled moderation and
would not order his deputies and the police to disperse the crowd by
force. The pacific policy of the sheriff impressed the mob with the idea
that the officers were afraid, or at least would do them no harm, and
they redoubled their efforts, urged on by a big switchman. At 12 o'clock
the door of the prison was broken in with a rail.

As soon as the rapist was brought out of the door calls were heard for a
rope; then someone shouted, "Burn him!" But there was no time to make a
fire. When Walker got into the lobby a dozen of the men began beating
and stabbing him. He was half dragged, half carried to the corner of
Front Street and the alley between Sycamore and Mill, and hung to a
telegraph pole.

Walker made a desperate resistance. Two men entered his cell first and
ordered him to come forth. He refused, and they failing to drag him out,
others entered. He scratched and bit his assailants, wounding several of
them severely with his teeth. The mob retaliated by striking and cutting
him with fists and knives. When he reached the steps leading down to the
door he made another stand and was stabbed again and again. By the time
he reached the lobby his power to resist was gone, and he was shoved
along through the mob of yelling, cursing men and boys, who beat, spat
upon and slashed the wretch-like demon. One of the leaders of the mob
fell, and the crowd walked ruthlessly over him. He was badly hurt--a
jawbone fractured and internal injuries inflicted. After the lynching
friends took charge of him.

The mob proceeded north on Front Street with the victim, stopping at
Sycamore Street to get a rope from a grocery. "Take him to the iron
bridge on Main Street," yelled several men. The men who had hold of the
Negro were in a hurry to finish the job, however, and when they reached
the telephone pole at the corner of Front Street and the first alley
north of Sycamore they stopped. A hastily improvised noose was slipped
over the Negro's head, and several young men mounted a pile of lumber
near the pole and threw the rope over one of the iron stepping pins. The
Negro was lifted up until his feet were three feet above the ground, the
rope was made taut, and a corpse dangled in midair. A big fellow who
helped lead the mob pulled the Negro's legs until his neck cracked. The
wretch's clothes had been torn off, and, as he swung, the man who pulled
his legs mutilated the corpse.

One or two knife cuts, more or less, made little difference in the
appearance of the dead rapist, however, for before the rope was around
his neck his skin was cut almost to ribbons. One pistol shot was fired
while the corpse was hanging. A dozen voices protested against the use
of firearms, and there was no more shooting. The body was permitted to
hang for half an hour, then it was cut down and the rope divided among
those who lingered around the scene of the tragedy. Then it was
suggested that the corpse be burned, and it was done. The entire
performance, from the assault on the jail to the burning of the dead
Negro was witnessed by a score or so of policemen and as many deputy
sheriffs, but not a hand was lifted to stop the proceedings after the
jail door yielded.

As the body hung to the telegraph pole, blood streaming down from the
knife wounds in his neck, his hips and lower part of his legs also
slashed with knives, the crowd hurled expletives at him, swung the body
so that it was dashed against the pole, and, so far from the ghastly
sight proving trying to the nerves, the crowd looked on with
complaisance, if not with real pleasure. The Negro died hard. The neck
was not broken, as the body was drawn up without being given a fall, and
death came by strangulation. For fully ten minutes after he was strung
up the chest heaved occasionally, and there were convulsive movements of
the limbs. Finally he was pronounced dead, and a few minutes later
Detective Richardson climbed on a pile of staves and cut the rope. The
body fell in a ghastly heap, and the crowd laughed at the sound and
crowded around the prostrate body, a few kicking the inanimate carcass.

Detective Richardson, who is also a deputy coroner, then proceeded to
impanel the following jury of inquest: J.S. Moody, A.C. Waldran, B.J.
Childs, J.N. House, Nelson Bills, T.L. Smith, and A. Newhouse. After
viewing the body the inquest was adjourned without any testimony being
taken until 9 o'clock this morning. The jury will meet at the coroner's
office, 51 Beale Street, upstairs, and decide on a verdict. If no
witnesses are forthcoming, the jury will be able to arrive at a verdict
just the same, as all members of it saw the lynching. Then someone
raised the cry of "Burn him!" It was quickly taken up and soon resounded
from a hundred throats. Detective Richardson, for a long time,
single-handed, stood the crowd off. He talked and begged the men not to
bring disgrace on the city by burning the body, arguing that all the
vengeance possible had been wrought.

While this was going on a small crowd was busy starting a fire in the
middle of the street. The material was handy. Some bundles of staves
were taken from the adjoining lumber yard for kindling. Heavier wood was
obtained from the same source, and coal oil from a neighboring grocery.
Then the cries of "Burn him! Burn him!" were redoubled.

Half a dozen men seized the naked body. The crowd cheered. They marched
to the fire, and giving the body a swing, it was landed in the middle of
the fire. There was a cry for more wood, as the fire had begun to die
owing to the long delay. Willing hands procured the wood, and it was
piled up on the Negro, almost, for a time, obscuring him from view. The
head was in plain view, as also were the limbs, and one arm which stood
out high above the body, the elbow crooked, held in that position by a
stick of wood. In a few moments the hands began to swell, then came
great blisters over all the exposed parts of the body; then in places
the flesh was burned away and the bones began to show through. It was a
horrible sight, one which, perhaps, none there had ever witnessed
before. It proved too much for a large part of the crowd and the
majority of the mob left very shortly after the burning began.

But a large number stayed, and were not a bit set back by the sight of a
human body being burned to ashes. Two or three white women, accompanied
by their escorts, pushed to the front to obtain an unobstructed view,
and looked on with astonishing coolness and nonchalance. One man and
woman brought a little girl, not over twelve years old, apparently their
daughter, to view a scene which was calculated to drive sleep from the
child's eyes for many nights, if not to produce a permanent injury to
her nervous system. The comments of the crowd were varied. Some remarked
on the efficacy of this style of cure for rapists, others rejoiced that
men's wives and daughters were now safe from this wretch. Some laughed
as the flesh cracked and blistered, and while a large number pronounced
the burning of a dead body as a useless episode, not in all that throng
was a word of sympathy heard for the wretch himself.

The rope that was used to hang the Negro, and also that which was used
to lead him from the jail, were eagerly sought by relic hunters. They
almost fought for a chance to cut off a piece of rope, and in an
incredibly short time both ropes had disappeared and were scattered in
the pockets of the crowd in sections of from an inch to six inches long.
Others of the relic hunters remained until the ashes cooled to obtain
such ghastly relics as the teeth, nails, and bits of charred skin of the
immolated victim of his own lust. After burning the body the mob tied a
rope around the charred trunk and dragged it down Main Street to the
courthouse, where it was hanged to a center pole. The rope broke and the
corpse dropped with a thud, but it was again hoisted, the charred legs
barely touching the ground. The teeth were knocked out and the
fingernails cut off as souvenirs. The crowd made so much noise that the
police interfered. Undertaker Walsh was telephoned for, who took
charge of the body and carried it to his establishment, where it will be
prepared for burial in the potter's field today.

of the Committee.)]

A prelude to this exhibition of nineteenth-century barbarism was the following telegram received by the _Chicago Inter Ocean_, at 2 o'clock, Saturday afternoon--ten hours before the lynching:

MEMPHIS TENN., July 22, To _Inter-Ocean_, Chicago.

Lee Walker, colored man, accused of raping white women, in jail here,
will be taken out and burned by whites tonight. Can you send Miss Ida
Wells to write it up? Answer. R.M. Martin, with _Public Ledger_.

The _Public Ledger_ is one of the oldest evening daily papers in Memphis, and this telegram shows that the intentions of the mob were well known long before they were executed. The personnel of the mob is given by the _Memphis Appeal-Avalanche_. It says, "At first it seemed as if a crowd of roughs were the principals, but as it increased in size, men in all walks of life figured as leaders, although the majority were young men."