Dreadful Deeds.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 42, 17 September 1887, Page 4

Dreadful Deeds.

We hare often heard of the degeneracy of liberty into license in the United States, and here is a striking instance of it. We can scarcely imagine such a scene in one of the Supreme Courts of this colony. Particulars of a most sensational murder trial in California, the sequel of which was the lynching of the murderer, are given by the Philadelphia correeponof the Times. One Hong-di, a Chinaman, recently brutally murdered a man and a woman at Colusa, California. He was tried on Saturday, the jury finding a verdict of guilty, and pronouncing his punishment to be imprisonment for lire. This verdict incensed the crowd in court, who wanted the man hanged; and the judge ■aid he would not accept the decision Everybody being aroused, a wild scene ensued in the courtroom, a hundred pistols being drawn amid cries of “ Lynch him I" The sheriff rose and quieted the crowd, saying that, while he disapproved of the verdict, he hoped no blood would be shed in cotit. The prisoner was then removed to gaol. A mob surrounded the building at midnight, broke in and seized Hong-di, ana dragged him out to a bridge, where they hanged him by throwing him over the r >arapet with a rope round his neck. The sheriff then took the body back to the gaol.