The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-02
WHY NOT BURN A MANI

by mob at Texarkana, Arkansas, in the
presence of 5000 people.
| Coy was strapped to the body Of the tree with
iron fastenings, and coal oil was poured over his
| entire person in liberal quantities. There was
moment of silence and then another shout
went up. 1t was:
'Let Mrs. Jewell apply the match. Let Mrs.
Jewell set him off"
Walking slowly, but very pale and collected,
| the woman emerged from the crowd. Her ap-
pearance set the mob wild, and = cheer shook
| the ground.
The crowd fell back at her approach, making
| pathway for her. Leaning upon the arm of q
| male relative either side, she walked I'M
hesitatingly forward to where the negro stood
pinioned, struck parlor match with her own
hand, and, with perfect elaboration, fred the
negro's clothes in two places.
In a second the poor wretch was one mass Of
flames, but while suffering the tortures of fire
he actually called to the men of the assembly,
and in a clear voice: Move back SO the ladies
can see."
Coy made but little noise during his horrible
death, except to groan, and died in about
twenty minutes after the application OF the
torch.
Burning negroes to death was not an in
frequent occurrence during the days of
slavery in the Gulf states. A slave who
killed his master or overseer was some
times burned to death. Since the burning
of Coy the people of Sedalia. No., have
been searching for another negro mis-
creant, whom they intend to burn. The
argument" for burning negro is that it
is more effective as deterrent of crimes
against women than death by hanging or
shooting.
OF course this argument for capital
punishment by torture at the North
would not be seriously offered, much
less accepted. Burning negroes alive
for rape is survival of the barbar-
ism of slavery that for oyer 240 years
had legal existence at the South.
Slavery turned the slave into brute; he
was educated under influences that cult
waited unbridled RIGHTEOUSNESS; slaves
were bred like stock slave marriages were
mere cattle marriages. The wife was sold
from the husband; the husband from the
wife; the children were sold; the women
were the victims of system of concu-
| binage; the planter often had his favorite
| female slaves; the negro men and women
| were trained to a contempt for conjugal
| virtue, which had no legal protection
| against the white mans lust.
Slavery educated the negro to be 4 thief;
for wageless labor always steals to get
even tor the theft of its liberty and labor;
| and slavery educated the negro into Ii
centious savage by treating chastity with
contempt and trampling the sanctity of
marriage into the mire of animal lust and
| the sexual commerce of c8ttle
Slavery did more than make brute of
the negro; it made savage of the white
master. A quarter OF century finds the
South still full of bestial, low-class ne
groes, and of white savages, both the
pestilential exhalations of the slowly dy-
ing bloody, noisome marsh of slavery.
| The negro beast and the white savage of
the South still survive, fright
full testimony to the horrible in
| fluence of slavery, whose deadly
virus still taints the arterial circulation of
the civilization of the old South. Why do
| not mobs north of the Ohio river and the
Maryland line burn men who outrage
women? 1t is not because such crimes
are unknown. In New York city, less
than sixty days ago, band of young
"teughs" forced the door of poor young
couples cabin, beat the husband into
helplessness and then ravished his wife
repeatedly before his eyes. On Sunday
last in Indiana two young men ravished
sick girl of - years of age. There is not
month passes in New York city without
the arrest of several young white savages
for brutality outraging women in open lots
in the upper part of the city. These
| young savages roam the streets in herds
and do not hesitate to overpower a lonely
woman, who ventures to walk a dark, IN
frequented, obscure street after nightfall.
These white miscreants are not burned
at the stake by the mob law at the North.
| Why are they not2 They are not burned
by the mob, because public opinion has
risen above legal or illegal torture at the
North; or rather slavery did not last long
enough at the North to drag public opin-
ion down to the level of barbarism.
The argument for capital punishment
by legal torture prevailed in Europe up to
| the days of the great French revolution of
| 1884. One of the first DEGREES of the
| French republican assembly was against
| legal torture. There were men then living
| who as late as 1857 had seen Damiens hor-
| ribly tortured to death for giving Louis
| the Fifteenth a mere scratch in the side
! with pen knife, and but three years be-
fore the French revolution criminal was
| burned TO death in the market place of
| Berlin. Legal torture in Western Europe
| died with the French revolution. The ar
| gument urged for the death penalty by
| fire, by breaking on the wheel, in punish
ment for treason or heresy, was that the
! more terrible the fortunes of the con-
| demned the more effective the example.
and civilization did not entirely outgrow
this hideous philosophy of capital punish
ment until the French revolution, origin
ally in humanity, set up the guillotine in
| place of the wheel, the rack, the stake and
the gibbet. There is not Christian gov
eminent on earth today that includes le-
| gal torture in its code; not even the gov
| ernments of the states of Arkansas, Mis-
souri,, Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama
whose mobs are prone TO burn negroes.
| Capital punishment by torture has no
| laval sNiSfapra pnfSiia ,F ,Lo