Birmingham age-herald., 1894-09-11
Reply to a Query From the New
 York World
ON A VISIT OF ENGLIsHMEN
To Our Southland to, Investi- gate Lynchings-Wash Before
 Your Own Doors First.

pears in the Evening State here this arti- cle:
 Governor O'Ferrall received last night the following telegram from the New York World:
 , "NEw YORK, Sept. 9.-1o Gov. Charles O'Ferrall, Esq.,: An English committee has been sent here to investigate and de- nounce southern lynchings. Will you please telegraph us what you think of England meddling with onr affairs!'
 THE GOVERNORS REPLY:
 "CoMMoNwEALTH OF VIRGINIA, l
 "GovERNoR's OFFICE,
 'RICHMoND, Va., Sept. ,, loS4. J gro the World New York;
 HThings have come to pretty pass in this country when we are to have lot of English moralists sticking their noses into our internal affairs. It IS the quintessence of brass and impudence. They had better sweep in front of their own doors before seeking to regulate us. We might as well investigate English affairs in India, her White Chapel murders, her Jack the klp- per's slashings, the May ybrick trial and her alleged injustice md cruelty to this woman, her rapacious colonial policy in Africa and the degrading effects upon the Chinese, re- sulting from her opium war.
 "What do they propose to do in case they find that law is not administered here according to their ideas? Declare war against us, or open the vials of their wrath upon our heads3 What information do they ss ekf Do they want to know that the white people in tue south have lynched nc. groes whose miserable lust has led them to the commission of the black crime of rape upon white women7 If 50 they need not investigate, for such Is the fact. Do they desire to know that this was done by in- ! Irritating com mmunities for the protection of their white women and save the victims of these dends from the humilia- tion of testifying in court? If so, this is the fact. Do they want to know whether there was any doubt of the guilt of the men lynched9 If so, for the satisfaction of their yearning souls they could have ascertained without encountering the perils of a sea trip that their guilt was clear in every in- stance. If they had desired to learn whether these lynchiugs were permitted or counts,. nanced by the civil authorities, they could have learned through the regular channels of correspondence that in every case the civil authorities were either without kuowi edge or overpowered.
 ''In Virginia the authorities iu every case have asserted all their power to sup press the ynching spirit, and within the last few months l have protected from violence with military, at heavy expense to the state, three negroes, who were charged with outraging white women. They had fair trials, were convicted and executed.
 ''While lynch law is to be condemned, every effort has been and will be made to suppress it in the south, without the ad' vice of those would-be philanthrophists, wilo have taken so much upon themselves. Lyhchings will surely cease when the crime of rape ceases. These sympathetic English men might find missionary work among the negroes of the south in warning them against the consequences of the forcible qualification of their develish lusts.
 "CHARLEs T. O'FERRALL,
 'tGoyernor of Virginia. '
 GOVERNOR NoRTHEN's REPLY.
 ATLANTA, Ga., Sept. 10.-Governor Northen, in answer to similar query says:
 The World. New York, N Y.;
 Say to the ''English committee" who have come to this country .'to investigate and denounce lynchings at the south, ' that am iu position to know that they have received their information from ire sponsible sources, and that the English people have declined and refused to be properly informed about our laws and tie Conduct of our government. The English papers, to my knowledge, have declined time and again to publish statements made to them in defense of the south by Eng south. Under these conditions We do not want any further outside hypocritical cant upon false ideas of our government.
 The people of this state are quite able to administer their own affairs, and they are doing it in full justice to the negro, as our laws and our conduct will attest We have already endured more outside interference a in our local matters than we will submis. sively tolerate in the future. Let these kindly disposed Englishmen return tu their own country and prevent by law the inhu- man sale of virtuous girls to lustful men in high places, hang all such demons as Jack the Ripper, punish as it deserves the bar. barious, wholesa slaughter of negroes in Africa by Englishmen, who go there to steal gold; supply the necessities to prevent bread and labor riots and strikes, which are wholly unknoxn 10 the people of the south; feed and give employment to the poor, as do the people of my section; give to the oppressed Irishmen the rights hu- manity demands; and when they shall have pulled the bean out of their own eyes, they may then, with better grace, appoint them-