"NIGHT-RIDERS'" TRIAL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 15, 11 February 1909, Page 4

"NIGHT-RIDERS'" TRIAL

REIGN OF TiSKJUm. j !Nl£\V YOKK, December 0. TJie secrets of the Tennessee "nightriders" organisation were disclosed at tlie trial in Union oi the eight men accused of murdering Captain Uankin, who was kiduajiped at night from an hotel, carried to llie woods, and there hanged.

..''lining State evidence, Frank Ker* riner, a farmer, described successive raids carried out by the organisation, beginning with the whipping in the dead of night of recalcitrant fanners and ending with the murder o» Mr Rankin. Forriuer positively identified four prisoner* as having participated in the murder. lixtraordinary evidence was given by Mrs ICmma -lolmson, the young wife of one of tlie prisoners. Ju August she sued lor a divorce. •• A few nights after," she testified, "night-riders masked aud armed, came to my father's home, where T was. and oemmanded me to abandon the suit. I refused, and they seized and whipped my father. "In September, while I was at my 1 si-ter's house, I awoke one night and ' found my room lilled with masked men j carrying guns. I knew they were the 1 night-riders. Tltev asi«ed me if I would withdraw my siiil. I said 'No.' They then dragged me us 1 was to a clump of trees yard- from the huu-c. Then they stripped nie and lashed me with a itrap with live tails. " for a Jong while 1 bore tin- pain, but \ !u n they whipped harder I yielded and promised to withdraw the suit." Other witnesses testified to carrying cans of oil under compulsion and setting lire to the lishinarket and warehouses, and also to taking pari in whipping by night ot various men and women who refused to obey the night-riders' orders.