The Russellville Democrat., 1885-12-17
Mob Law and it's Causes.

We publish tue following RuSSell- vile correspondence to the Gazette on the subject of mob law because it offers some excellent thoughts on very perplexing subject:
 To the Editor of The Gazette.
 RUssELLvILLE, ARK, Nov. 20.-I have read your editorial and the ar ticle of your correspondent Tn yester- days issue on the question as to what is the real reason why the citi zcns of Arkansas, as we'll as other states, resort to mob law in many cases to punish criminals.
 The reason that mob law is resort ed to is apparent. It is because the courts fail to punish the guilty; but the question Is, why do the people set aside the courts and take the law inso their own hands and enforce it without any law whatever save that of me,e physical force.
 You must know, Mir. Editor, that the people do not so act without reason, and very potent reason It must be. l have been for thirty years (excepting four years in the army), practicing lawyer, and certainly have had good opportuni- ty to notice the manner and extent to which the law for the punishment of criminals has been executed with in the scope of my observation dur Ing that time. It is safe to say that l have seen as many as twenty per sons tried Tn Arkansas and Missls. sippi upon charges of murder, in which trials the facts showed that they were guilty of murder, yet of that whole number l cannot now recollect of but one of that twenty having been hung for murder, and he was hung not by the law, but by mob. That occurred at Dover, in this county. The murderer deliber- ately persuaded woman to go out into the lonely woods with him, and there killed her ant threw her body into a pool of water This occurred in Franklin county. The accused was tried in Pope on change of venue, and convicted of murder in the first degree. His case was taken to the supreme court, and whilst pending there Gov. Churchill com muted his sentence to Imprisonment for life, after the sheriff erected the gallo ss for him. When this became known the mob very quietly took the man (Emory, l think his name was, and hung him on the gallows already erected for him. You know, Mir. Editor, why the mob did this. The man had committed the murder of an innocent woman. He had a fair trial, and the jury and every one else who knew the facts, knew he was guilty, hence he was hung. Of all the murderers ever tried at Dover the only one ever hung was hung by mob, after the court said he was guilty.
 Mob law is greatly to be deplored, as all will admit, even when It's vic um is plainly guilty.
 But the question is this, and the court and the people had as well meet it face to face. Which IS the best of the two--to let murderers escape unpunished or to quietly take them out and hang them by mob?
 The county of Yell across the riy CT from us has tragic and bloody history in regard to the execution of mob law. A few years ago there was so much killing and murdering and so many escapes from jail and failures to convict, that the people took into their own hands on several occasions, the execution of ths law, and they hung five men in less than two yeaIs-three in DardaneIe and two :n Danyille One of those men hung at Danvine, it is said, was guilty of no oleDse whatever; except being found with bad men. Now the people of Yell county are per haps fully equal in moral integrity law-abiding spirit and patriotism tt those of any in the state. The towr of Dardanelle, where three oi thes, men were hung, is not inferior to an,