LYNCH LAW IN AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 227, 18 September 1908, Page 4

LYNCH LAW IN AMERICA

iNEUKO Jtt'liN'ED AT U'llE HTAIiE. Xew York, August 1. A seventeen year-ohl negro boy.t named Ted Smith, after assaulting t'ne daughter of a. Texas farmer, nauied !)ehi:iey, was publicly burned at a s take under characteristic circumstances at Givnvilie, near 'Port Worth, yesitierdlay. On Tuesday afternoon, while the father was ploughing and the mother was out visiting, the daughter Viola, who wag sixteen years old, started fur a rural letterbox 300 yards away. Smith saw 'her, chased her, attacked her, and decamped". The lr'rl ran home and gave the alarm, and soon ]()0' men were searching the woods for that negro. The officers of the law finally found him and took him to gaol at 3 o'clock yesterday morning.

The news that the "negro was in prison soon leaked out, and by eight in the morning quite (5000 people gathered outside the gates. The officers tried their best to save the prisoner's life, and two local magistrates delivered speeches promising that the negro j would be tried, mid that if convicted I he would Ik: executed before dusk. But this did not satisfy the crowd. 'They demanded that the sherifV should send the negro to the girl's home to see if she eouhl identify him.' A dozen olVwers starts'd out with Smith and arrived at Delrinev's house, where the girl established her assailants identity. Upon the return and at hlie [prison door the crowd pressed forward, overpowered the officers, captured the negro, nnd bore him awav in triumph. They threw a rope round his neck and began to drag him towards the public square. Then they tied him to a stake, piled eordwood round him, saturated, both with kerosene oil. and set light t6 the pile. The flames shot up s'everal yards, and. amid shouts of joy from men. women, and children. Smith uttered screams of agony until death silenced him. After, hss than ten minutes only a few chnrred bones remained.