Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-12-28
Lancaster fnteltlgenrer.
TUESDAY EVENING, DEC. %, 1880.
The northampton Lynchlng.

TUESDAY EVENING. DEC. %. 1890.
The Northampton Lynching.
The proverbial blindness of passion
was strongly exemplified by that North
ampton county crowd of excited men
who hung the brutal murderer of the
Goggles. They believed him guilty of a
crime upon evidence which
seemed to them conclusive. 1t seems SO
to every one. There is no present doubt
that the verdict of guilty, rendered sum-
marily by the crowd, was just
one, and that the punishment of
death meted out to the murderer
was we'll deserved. The men who law
lessly administered it may have thought
that they were adding intensity to it by
their promptness; but more probably
they did not stop to think at all, but
hung the fellow just to crafty their un-
reasoning passion. If they had stopped
to think they would have found that in
hanging their victim at once they were
doing him the greatest possible kindness,
provided he was really guilty rs they be-
lieved. OF course. if he should by any
chance turn out not to have been guilty,
they will have made mistake for which
they vii! have reason to lie very sorry.
If he was guilty their sober moments
will also bring them occasion for deep
regret !; not only because they have vio-
lated the law, but because they have
taken from the guilty the heaviest part
of the punishment for his crimes, when
he richly deserved to bear every hit of it
that could be lawfully laid upon him. A
more dastartlly murder was never COM
mitted if the present account is true of
the act and its motive. Now what was
the mans punishment ? 1t was the
agony of 4 few hours exchanged for that
of many months. Surely we all know
that the punishment of man, so far as
man can inflict it, is ended with death !;
and that the agony of death is in its an
ticiw.tion by the scntient body and
not in its endurance by the dead one.
Joseph Snyder's punishment is over. If
the lawllad retained its hold upon him
he would yet have suffered Il long while.
Nor would he, guilty, have escaped his
just fate in the country in which his
dark deed was done. The justifica-
tiOn of lynclling in places where the law
is silent was not had 10y these North
amptOn lynchers. They were not moved
to their act by Il just fear that the guilty
murderer would escape if he was left to
the law. They acted only from blind
unreason:ns passion and in qualification
of the natural bIoOdthirstineSs of the
senseless and brutal mob. The men
who hung Snyder are just the men
whom we may look to for deeds that
may earn them the rope; for they showed
that they had not control of their pas
sions and were not ruled by reason.
The law must take cognizance of their
crime. That of Snyder is insignificant,
in its relation to the public safety, COM
pared to theirs. 1t is said that Il lynch
ing never took place before in Pennsyl-
vania. It is the place of the laws Off
GERS now 10 see to it that it never takes
place again. Life and property must not
be held ut the order of mems passions
The fundamental idea of government is
to provide against this. This lynchine
crowd who took the life Of Snyder, in that
act assai!ed tie life of the state, and we
say that their otfense is the most hcinOus
one that the law can know. Whether this
man Snyder WIS guilty of the murder
charged to him is wholly immaterial.
though there are some circumstances
that we note which make lis doubt
whether his offence was us black us it is
painted. What was he doing, for in.
stance, rs q boarler in the house of the
Goggles if he had behaved to the
daughter rs size now testifies he had re-
peatedly done, and if his conduct had
aroused the anger of the father and
mother; and wherefore did he, if he
was not Il lullatic, kill the parents and
leave the little children rs the witnesses
of his crime ard his assault upon the
older sister? These are merely sug.
gestiOns that make it possible that
Snyder was not rs deeply guilty as
charged but tile degree of his guilt OF
innocence is of no consequence now in
judging the crime of those who took his
life. OF that there is no particle OF
doubt and it should be punished without
mercy, for the safety of the state de.
mandS it.