The Portland daily press., 1894-11-10
LYNCHiNG IN AMERICA.
London Times Tells the English Women
Who are Resolving ON the Subject That
Their Movement is Mistake.
(From the London Times j

U. >, ought TO be grateful to the Anti
bynch1ng Committee, of London, England
address, care of Mrs. Clayton. ID, Tavis-
took square,. That estimable, but not yet
world-famous, body has given him a rare op-
portunlty of vindicating the institutions
OF Ala bama and the enlightenment of her
Citizens. Acting presumably, upon Inst1uc-
tions. 'tEe lady who discharges the duties
of honorary secretary issued rescript cal
ling the Governors attention to the alleged
lynching of two negro murderer by an Ala
hama mob. The murderers, as the Commit
tees information ran. We're taken out of a
passenger train, hanged, land, while gasp
ing their last, yolley of buck-shot and bull
let's was fired into their hodies.'' That, of
course, was a ferOcious. and lawless thing
to do. thought may be doubted whether
the buckshot and bulletsswere not, in the cir
cumstances. an act of clemency. But. in
The eyes of Miss Balgarnie and ner Commit
tee, such lethal accessories naturally render
the episode. more lurid and narrowing, and
their sympathy for the murderers much
more intense. The Committee. however,
were not. SO dlscourteous and unfair as to
assume the truth of the story off hand.
1T appears" they politely remark, al
most incredible THAI such lawlessness can
occur in communities supposed to be civil
led They therefore invite the Governo or s
assurances that 1.-THE alleged atrocity is IN
founded" But the Committee are not in a
mood to suspend their Judgment until they
know whether the particular atrocity is an
''unfouned atrocityn or true atrocity. p
Should it unhappily prove true they
proceed, "we feel constrained to express our
hpr Of al. <.f Al,
kind. whose inhumanity. lawlessness, and
cowaIdice cannot fail to compromise the
reputation of Americans generally. though y
they charitalby add. i've cannot suppose
that honorable people in America are less
shocked than ourselves at such events.''
We'shall not assume. until il is shown, that
this letter wassapproyed by the general body
of the Committee, which appears to include
the Duke of Argyll. Sir j. E. Gorst. Mr..
Frederic Harrison, Mr.. 7. E. Ellis. Sir JOS
eph Pease, Professor Stuart, and Mr.. JUS
tin Mccarthy. 1t may be that the persons
responsible for it are comparatively few.
We resist, too. the temptation to examine
its grammatical structure. It would be such
a pity if Miss Balgarnie were lynched by
mob of enraged grammarians. What's bet
ter worth attention is the delicious phal-
isaism of the letter. Here is our old friend
the Nonconformist conscience on the war
path again, deeply conspicuous of the i'm
projections of other people. and innoce ntly
giving the Americans an Illustration Ut
Lowell's line upon British sanctimonious-
ness
.'It's you're the sinner oilers, he's the
saint.
What's goods all English, all that isn't
ANTI
1t would have been miracle if Miss Bal
garnie's letter had failed to draw the
Governor ofgAlabama. -
Yet the Governor ought to be very CRATE
full for the opening. 1t has enabled him to
display all.those qualities which American
citizens admire in Governor-eloquence,
earnestness, dignity, religious feeling. po-
itical sagacity. and independence of foreign,
and especially British, dictation. We were
going to add literary ability, if a few OBJ
securities and involutions of expression
characteristic of the American statesman
had not called halt. But in exhaustive
ness and cogency the governor IS replyieaves
nothing to be desired. He turns tie Com
mittee's protest round and round, and looks
al it from every point of view-except the
humorous. He puts the case of a body of
American citizens addressing similar in
auries and similar structures to the Queen,
and says truly that such communication
would be deemed the work Of diseased or
ignorant minds and wholly ignored" Per-
haps the Governor of Alabama would not
have been il-adyised to do as he says that
the Queen and her advisers would have
done. Ordinarily" it appears he would
have taken This course. sin this instance"
however. he observes, the expression of
some further convictions on the subject
may serve a useful purpose"-what purpose
we are left to guess. Then he brings up his
batteries. He points out that the attempt
of committee of British subjects to con-
stitute themselves the censors OF other civ.
ilized nations is likely to do more harm
than good, by arousing resentment at
sswhat right-thinking men everywhere re-
gard the greater evil-the presence and
voice of the stranger in thu rule of our
homes" He appeals to history. to the ex-
perience of mankind, to considerations of
political philosophy. and to the civilized
world; nor omits reference to a Higher
Power. While declaring his own aversion
to mob violence, he condemns the practice
of judging a country by isolated incidents
or crimes of an exceptional class, and is
good enough to allow that the credit of Eng
fish civilization is not fatally involved in
''the blowing of sepoys from the mouth Of
cannon. the keelhauling of sailors at Alexn-
andria, or even the conditions of life which
Justin Mccarthy describes as lately existing
in English collieries.'' We confess TO an
ignorance concerning the "keel-hauling.
If not a mythical incident, it is probe oily as
remote as the rem1niscene, culled from Mr..
Justin M'Carthy's book. of the period before
Lord Shafftesbury' legation. "Yet all these
writes the Governor, were greater evils
than the class of lyuching to which you re-
fer This is matter of opinion, of course ::
and the Governor is we'll entitled to his. His
examples are, at all events, good enough to
illustrate the difficulties awaiting those
who would supervise the morality of other
nations. There is really no answer to be
made to him. His projection is a little pol