MOB LAW

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 99, 17 December 1931, Page 2

MOB LAW

CRIMES UNDER "JUDGE LYNCH" IN AMERICAN STATES iSPECTATORS CHEER HANGING YANCOUYER, Saturday. Two thousand spectatoi's cheered when Mack Williams, a negro, 3$ years oTd,""was 'dragged from a hospit'al bed and'lynched in a courtyard in the centre of the town of Salis-* bury." " ; l Early to-day, Williams killed Daniel Elliott, A prominent merchantl The police guarded the front door of the hospital' \^here' Williams, wounded durihg his capture, occupied a bedl Six men entdred by a 'rear door/ threw bandages Over Williams's mouth and eyes, forced him to walk three blocks, and quickly strung him over*a lamp-post. • ' « Judge Lynch ' New Zealand is lucky not to know Judge Lynch's ''justice." • Ed. Claus was a man wanted in a Geor'gian case. He was said to have assaulted one Susie Johnson. Whether He dld feo or not' ,is "immatbrial, as-the mhn whom the mob got 'hold of ' was n'ot ClauS;* ■ •They hanged this- victim of careless 'identification, 'and* shot his body full of holes. ■ ' •- Robert Johnson, of West Virginia, was accused in 1912 — and wrongly, as it proved— of an attack upon "a woman. '' The supposed victim failed to identify him. But the accusers took him to her a second tim'e, after altering his dress to cdrrespond with her descriptions.' • ' " ' " " She screamed, "That's the man !" and this bit of evidence sUfficed to hang him from a telegra'ph pole. ' In Louisiana, negro William Garr, .said to have killed" a white man's cbw, was lynched, as the papers reported, in !"most orderly fashion" by 30 'masked men, who hanged him from a bridge. . Sometimes the mob does not even careT whether its victim is a suspect. In Oklahoma, lynchers killed the yo'ung son of a coloured woman, just because they happened to be murderin'g his mother, suspected of slaying a deputy sheriff. ... A favourite lynching method is roasting. On occasions it has been preceded by the lopping-off of ears or fingers of victims. So- the moral of • these and other little "mistakes" — -gathered from the newspaper -records-of- America-'-is that- any innocent man or woman is liable t-o be caught and cooked alive whef ever ■ Judge Lynch sets up his court.