LYNCHING IN THIS SOUTHERN STATES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2745, 1 December 1894, Page 4

LYNCHING IN THIS SOUTHERN STATES.

The presence in this country (writes the New York correspondent of the Argus) of a committee from England, which has undertaken to investigate concerning the lynching of negroes in the Southern States, has disturbed and excited the Governors of several commonwealths, who recently gave vent to their feelings in public letters. This is the committee of three persons sent to the United States by the organisation formed in England as the fruit of the labors of Miss Ida JB. Wells, an educated negro woman, who crossed the Atlantic with the hope of procuring in London an expression of opinion that would serve to reduce the number of lynch-law murders here. The names of the three investigators are not known, and they are doing their work very quietly. The following are samples of these gubernatorial utterances: —“ We do not want,” writes Governor Northen, of Georgia, “any further outside hypocritical cant upon the false ideas of our government. The people of this State are quite able to administer their own affairs, and they are doing full justice to the negro. We have already endured more outside interference in our local matters than wo will submissively tolerate in the future. Any attempt upon the part of Englishmen, tainted by their own national crimes, to arraign us for trial must be considered by us as a gross impertinence.” Governor Stone, of Missouri, thinks the coming of the committee “ is an exhibition of superb cheek.” “We are amply able in this grand country,” writes Governor Reynolds, of Delaware, “to take care of ourselves.” Altgeld, of Illinois, who pardoned the Anarchist murderers, says the Southern people “ should return the compliment and send a committe to Ireland to stop the outrages there.” At the end of the list the Governor of Utah, where the Mormons dwell, characterises the coming of the investigators as “ presumptuous effrontery.” It appears, then, that the agents of the Duke of Argyll’s association would not be received with abundant courtesy if they should make their inquiry openly. It is to be hoped, however, that their investigations and report will tend to repress the crime of lynching, which is almost universally denounced in our northern States, where examples of it are very rarely seen, and which a majority cf the authorities in the south formally oppose. Their excuse is that it cannot be prevented. The truth is that scarcely any attempt to prevent it is made. The woman whose lectures in England have led to this inquiry was guilty, in her public addresses and letters, of making unwarranted insinuations against the chastity of southern white women, while she attacked those who lynch negroes for rape ; but nearly all of her assertions were true. The practice or habit of lynching negroes in the south is one that is becoming more prevalent every year. There was a time when this lawless punishment was inflicted, as a rule, only upon negroes guilty of assaults upon white women, but now many of the victims are men who have committed less serious offences. A few weeks ago, for example, a lynching party shot to death six negroes who were accused of having set Are to some barns, and whom a sheriff was conducting to gaol. This was near the city of Memphis, where Miss Wells was born, and where a considerable part of her turbulent life was passed. It is largely due to the English agitation that the authorities are really trying to detect and punish these lynchers. The attitude of the southern people toward lynching is deplorable, and the record of lynching outrages is a terrible and appalling one. It must be apparent that when lynching ia defended by the most prominent bishop in the south the local sentiment in favour of it is formidable. Notwithstanding the silly remarks of the southern governors, a great majority of the people of the United States will rejoice if by the efforts of English philanthropists something shall be accomplished towards the discouragement and prevention of this crime.