The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1880-12-09

About the middle of the bridg,
I they halted and Smith was told u
get into a two horse wagon. there
standing. He climbed in hurriedly
and stood motionless and express
sionless while the moose was care
fully adjusted about his neck and
the other end thrown over a joist
and tied tightly by a man who had
climbed there for that purpose.
Here the crowd was called to or
der and all renamed silent to hear
the last words of fiend about to
seek companionship with kindred
spirits in the dark realms of perdi-
tion. A man mounted into the
wagon and, addressing the negro,
asked him if he had anything to say
before he died, but not a word or
sign did he make. He stood mo-
tionless, the picture of blank des-
pair. Elder William Smith, the
gentleman who had mounted into
the wagon, proceeded to say that he
had raised Dan and partly raised
the poor child that he had so bru-
tally outraged; he had read the bi
BILE to him and tried in every way to
bring him within it blessed inhuen
ces, but it seemed he had not sue
ceeded, for he now stood there
guilty of the most revolving ,offense
in the catalogue of crime, and the
people had come to visit their wrath
upon him. The speaker was inter
rupted and forced to desist By the
shouts of the multitude:
"DRIvE OUT THE WAGoN!'
At length, when the negro had
been given time to pray or speak,
without making any response, he
obeyed an order to mount upon the
side of the wagon bed, the vehicle
was driven out from under him and
he was left dangling in the air
The fall vas not sufficient to break
his neck and he died from strangu-
lation. He must have suffered in
tensely, but save a few nervous
twitchings and an occasional draw
ing up of the shoulders, be gave no
outward signs of agony. When the
rope was taut, the wagon gone and
daylight shone between his feet and
the floor, a colored woman at the
entrance to the bridge, gave vent to
a succession of piercing shrieks,
while up the street about hun
dred yards. alone, add avoided by
crowd of colored women who
looked upon her with dazedexpres
sion of countenance that spoke
horrible aversion, stood the woman
who called him husband, moaning
in unutterable lamentations. When
the deed was done the crowd imme-
diately began to disperse, some re-
naming, to see the tragedy 10 the
end. After he had remained sus-
pended about two hours, Esq. w.
F. Alexander, acting coroner, ap-
peared and with assistance cut the
body down and placed it in a coffin,
1olding an inquest ana giving a
verdict of death by the people,
Effort was made to induce some of
the colored people in the vicinity to
shelter the body for the night, but
none of them would allow il to en-
ter their houses, and it was there
fore taken to the colored cemetery
and left unburied until this morning.
Dan was short but rather heav-
lily built and had smooth. boyish
face which gave no evidence of his
beastly propensities. His age ap-
peared to be about p and his col
or approached that of a. mulatto,
During the march to the bridge he
remarked to one Of his guards that
he was guilty and wanted to die
and that whisky was the cause OF,
his trouble.
Thus Dan Smith met his death.
Was his punishment just? Who
dares say nay! He confessed and
the proof was overwhelming. The
sheriff tried to protect him to the