A Lynching- Horror

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 39, 28 September 1905, Page 2

A Lynching- Horror

There/ was a time when Americans were very touchy about the lecturings which they received on, the subject of lynching from ' people with enlarged consciences 'at the other side of the Atlantic. The late Dean Hole (Anglican) was about the first transatlantic critic of- note who broke the fairly well established literary; tradition of unconditional condemnation of the-rough-and-ready proceedings of Judge Lynqh. He has since then 1 been followed by sundry other non-Catholic clergymen-, dhpefly in the United Stages. On«* at lefest of these has gfone so far as to defend not merely the principle, but the barbarous application to which of Isite years it has been increasingly put, :We refer to the roasting-alive of the real or supposed culprit. Here is a paragraph from a report in a recent issue of the New York ' Sum,' which details the execution of a negro by a mob in Texas :—

' Dry goods boxes were broken for fuel, and a heap a yard high was piled about him and oil was poured upon it. ft was ten minutes from the start of the blaze until the negro began to roast. He screamed for five minutes, his eyes bulged from their sockets, and his tongue lolled from, his mouth. His death was so horrible that many ran from the scene.'

This horrible penalty of burning alive has been unknown to the law in civilised countries since somewhere about the beginning of the eighteenth century, it ceased to be the legal punishment in England for wives who murdered their husbands. But it is in high favor to this hour with some of the ' best people ' in the Southern and Western States, and during the past ten years has been inflicted upon, perhaps, some two score of American criminals or suspects by the greenwood courts of Judge Lynch. At an inquest on a man killed in a Munster faction fight, the cautious verdict ram : ' The deceased met his death by the visitation of God, under suspicious circumstances.' Deaths at the hands of Judge Lynch' s executioners in America are, we believe, frequently concealed in the State recordsi unjder somewhat similar euphemistic headings,, such) as ' accidents,' ' homicides,' misadiventures,' etc. At any rate, they do not, so far as we are aware, appear as a separate item in the returns of crime, although they aire as- constant a cause of mortality as lockjaw or chalky gout. But returns before us, published by the ' Chicago Tribune,' and other newspapers, credit the country with an average of nearly two hundred of those irregular or murderous ' operations ' a year— a strikingly large number as compared with those of the legitimate Jack Ketch.

The horrible and apparently increasing frequency of those murders by fire gives a point to the indignant query of Truthful James : ' Is our civilisation a failure ? Or is the Caucasian played out ? '

There 'exists in New Zealand an association of wellmeaning people wlijo send out missi'onariles to ' convert ' the ' Romanists ' of Bolivia and Argentina, among whom such crimes are unknown. Might we suggest to them the desirability of exporting a few courageous^ evangelists to preach the .elements of Christianity and civilisation to the white savages that ' pot ' and cook human being-s in (say) Texas and Louisiana ? Dr. Durier, the Catholic 'Bishop of Natchitoches, would probably welcome any earnest allies for his crusade against the blood-stained ruffianism tihat is such a vile outgrowth of the American civilisation of our day.