A Horrible Story.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 176, 30 October 1886, Page 7 (Supplement)

A Horrible Story.

A despatch from Savannah, Georgia, oa 2Sth ult,, gives what it describes as a fuR account of the Tatnall County cannibal aftdir : - A few days ago some of the coloured people in the lower end of the, county held a picnic. They had engaged a& cook and general overseer of the culinary department an old negro woman. Great* preparations had been m^de for the festivities, and the sport ran high. It was a hungry band that gathered for dinner and awaited the feummona. It was served at last, and the merry -makers fell to it with a will. Hardly had the edibles begun to disappear when a strange hush fell upoa the boisterous group. One had been served with a piece of meat that clung to a small jointed bone, ift did not look like anything he had ever seen come trom a fry-ing-pan before, aud he showed it to his neighbour. The other looked at it attentively for a moment. " It is the finger of & child," he eaid. There wa<* a sensation Avhich quickly spread into a panic. A hasty examination ot other plates was made. More fingers were found, and pieces of meat that were evidently human fleah were held upon forks and gazed at by the now thoroughly excited negroes. They gazed at each other in a frightened way and then there was a simultaneous break for the cabin in which the cook had prepared the> meal. She met them at the door, brandishing a large knife. A wild light— like that of a maniac - gleamed from her eyes. The crowd paused as the knife was flourished over their heads, sll but one, a, woman, who rushed forward with a shriek,, "My child : what have you done with my child ?" There was no answer from the' old cook. "Heft it here in her charge." critdtha excited mother, appe&lingtothefriendsaboufc her. " Where is my child ? She has killed it." With fiendi=h yell?, the dusky army,, fired by her agonising cries, bore down upon the cook, and in spite of her frantic struggles tore the knife fiom her grasp* Evidences of the murder were about them i there was blood on the floor, and the table was smeared with ir. The living child waa not here to be seen, but in its place "was a, portion of a little human body which bad been taken from the oven. Piecea of flesh, had been carved from it. The excitement; 1 among the sea renew was of the wildest kind They tore everything to pieces in the •abin in their fury. It waa plain enough that the old woman had murdered the child there, and bad cooked half of the body. Where was the other half ? There weca drops of blood across the floor. Someone, less excited than the rest, followed the telltale trail. It led to a barrel just outsider and behind the ahanty. A shout informed his companions that the missing portion had been found. They' rushed out to find him pulling it from the barrel, where it bad been salted down. Then thero was a general cry for vengeance, and the frenzied shouts rang through the trees. Some suggested lynching, but there was no rope. Others wanted to hack her in piecea with the earn© knife that took the life of the little child. Still another cried "Burn her," and the cry was taken up and repeated until all in the excited crowd were crying "burn her, burn her " She fought like a wild beast. She crouched and struggled, and used her teeth and hand3. But her captors were tao> many t« cope wit ; she was led out to the slaughter kicking and shrieking. They dragged her to a tree and bound hex?, to it. Then they heaped brushwood around > her, and fired it in a dozen places. A circle of tire surrounded her, and trom the midst of it she begged for mercy one moment and shrieked her imprecations the next; and around her stood the excited negroes watching the flameo as they scorched her flesh, and seized upon her clothing and enveloped her in a sheet of fire. It was a scene too terrible to paint ; but not one of them took their eyes from her until she fell into the ashes a blackened corpse. The woman was undoubtedly insane. -