The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1892-05-26
The Recent Nashville Lynch
ing and It's Effect on
the Community.
A View of Mob Law From a AgnOS-
ties Standpoint-HOrriblc Pun
iShment Hardens the People
and Produces Crime.

The recent lynchlng at Nashville
was the subject of long conversation
between q Commercial Gazette report
er and Col. Robt. Ingersoll at Cincin-
natl the other day. After referring 10
the incident as reported in the papers,
Col Ingersoll said: "I don't believe
in mob law at any time, among any
people. believe in justice being
meted out in accordance with the
forms of law. If a community vio-
lates that law, why should not the
individual? The example is bad. Be-
sides all that, no punishment inflicted
by mob tends to prevent the COM
mission of crime. Horrible punish
ment hardens the community, and
that in itself produces more crime.
For instance, man went to Alexan-
dria, Va, to see two negroes hanged
for numbering an old man and woman
for their money. That night the man
who witnessed this double execution
murdered a man in the grounds of the
Smithsonian Institute at Washington.
That man was executed, and man
who witnessed his execution went
fhoReTliat same day and murdered his
wife, So much blood for the example
OF public executions. There seems to
be sort of
FASCINATION IN FRIGHTFUL PUNISH
MENTs,
but to say the least of it, all these
things demoralize community. In
some countries, you know, they whip
people for petty offenses. The whip
ping, however, does no good, and on
the other hand it does harm. 1t hard
ems those who administer the punish
ment and those who witness it, and it
degrades those who receive it.
"There will be but little charity in
the world, and but little progress
continued the colonel, with much feel.
ing in his voice, "until men see clearly
that there is no chance in the world
OF conduct any more than in the ply
sical world.
"Bsck of every act and dream and
thought and desire and virtue and
crime is the efficient cause. II you
: wish to change mankind, you mus
change the conditions. There should
be no such thing as punishment. W.
should endeavor to reform men, anC
those that cannot be reformed should
be placed where they cannot in
) iure their fellows. The State shoul(
, never take revenge any more than th'
community should organize them
selves into a mob and take revenge
This does harm, not good. The tim
will come when the world will no NOR
think of sending a man to the peniten
tiary for stealing than it will of send
ing him there because he has symp
toms OF consumption. When tina
: time comes the object will be to re
form men,
TO PREVENT CRIME INSTEAD OF Pun
"a IsHING IT,
A and the object then will be to max
Y. the conditions such that honest pee
st pie will be the result, but as long @
d hundreds of thousands OF human b.
4 ings live in tenements, as long q
o. babes are raised in gutters, as long {
1T competition is so sharp that hundred
le of thousands must Of necessity be fai
IL ures, just so long you will have you
Il jails and your prisons full. Just {
I'd long as society gets down on its kne'
TO before the great and successful thieve
ee before the millionaire thieves, just I
le long will it have to fill the jails an
a. the prisons with the little thieve
ty When the good time comes men wi
not be judged by the money they ha'
ne accumulated, but by the uses the
re make OF it. SO men will be Judge
MS not according to their intelligenc
in but by what they are endeavoring
wv accomplish with their intelligenc
We In other words, the time will con
when character will rise above q