LYNCH- LAW.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2473, 7 March 1893, Page 3

LYNCH- LAW.

A blood-curdling instance of lynch law took place at Paris, Texas, February 1. It appears that a negro named Henry Wraith had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly by Policeman Yance, and in making the arrest Vance used his club on him. To be revenged for this, Smith picked up a child of Vance’s, a girl aged three years and a half, carried her to a pasture near the outskirts of the city, where he first viciously assaulted the baby, and then erne little limb in each hand, and tope her body asunder, Then he covered the remains with leave* ; and brush, lying down and sleeping • , , _ through the night by the of lli8 ° vi ‘^ mpraillg hb went to the house of h ’.o Vhe and forced her to cook him breakfast. Then he put out for his old home in the Stats of Arkansas, The news of hyj ih'igie. soon spread. Smith was caught near Hope, Arkansas, and returned to Paris, brought in by a procession of thousands of people. Scarcely had he reached Paris before his torture commenced. His clothes were torn off and scattered in the crowd, the people catching shreds and putting them away as mementoes. The chilcl’a father, her brother, and two uncles, then gathered about the negro as he was fusioned to a torture platform and thrust red-hot irons into his quivering body. Every groan from the wretch, dying in (ho midst of the smoko from Ids own burning flesh, every con ioition was hailed with cl',6f;vivig. by the thickly-packed oroyAl. After burning his feet and legs, the red-hot irons were rolled up and down Smith’s stomach, back mid arras. Then his eyes were burned out, and the irons thrust down his throat. The men of the Vanco family haying wreaked their vengeance, the crowd piled all sorts of combustible stuff around the scaffold, poured coal oil on it, and set it on tire. The negro struggled, and emerged from the mass onl/to bo pushed backed by the ' people nearest to him. He emerged a second time, but was repelled and pushed back. In less time than it takes to relate it, the tortured negro was reduced to a crisp, and ig a little while nothing was left of the wlr le funeral pile but pieces of charcoal, which were carried away by curiosity seed's.

j residents of I'apanui who spoke to him on j the Saturday testify to his being perfectly sober and rational.