The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-09-03

believe the ravisher cares no more for
results Of his crime than a brute. 1t
does not stop the others any more than
hanging a dog stops the other dogs
from killing sheep. It only gets rid OF
one brute, and that had better be done
by law than to aus hundreds Of men
to become reckless. The question ought
to be studied from other standpoints.
There are defects in our laws which,
with the proper attention, could be
cured so hat there would be no diff
cultjes. The last legislature did not
pass q new law, as you suppose. Its
members entirely ignored Governor
RusseIPs recommendations In hat
respect, and the recent trials hav
been under the old law. I say recent
trials because 1t seems to have been
entirely overlooked by the press that
the week before the Brodie trial one
Dock Black, a negro, was tried before
q Of the judges in Greene county, for
rape Upon Miss Jane Stepp, a highly
respectable white woman and convicted
and sentenced to be hung on Septem-
her LIST. 1t was in every respect as out
r1geOus a crime as the Vance county
a11xir. He is now in Jail at Goldsboro,
where he had previously been taken to
avoid violence. I mention it because
It n 80 often said that such criminals
AAAAO NC oPCColiy tIlCu dIlu cACCulcu
~ IN excuse for lynching."
We hin it altogether probable that
men who override the law, especially
violently. are not SO law abiding after
wards. The philosophy Of doing evil
that good may oTn asserts itself in
this as in other things, in other forms
Of sin and evil. Wrong, violence, sin
assoil. lower moral tone and volume,
and make a repetition easy. It is so
with all forms and expressions Of vice
and immortality. Dur friend says that
lynching does not stop rape and neither
do the courts. Murders, crimes Of all
kinds are increasing with the increase
Of courts. Man in his worst estate is
very much Of a human devil. When
the lynchers in 1896, put out Of the
world some 100 or more rapists they
rid society of the possibility Of being
ever disturbed by the dead scoundrels.
We a noticed several times that
rapists in their confessions admitted to
have raped or attempted rape upon
other pure, unprotected women We
are not pleading for lynching, but
showing hat the courts no more end
b Internal crimes of murder and rape
h lynchings end them. Both mere
ly end the career of villains who are
unworthy to live. Our friend admits
the defects in the laws. They have been
apparent to all lawyers through the
decades, n remain uncured. How
lOng-how many more decades must
they continue so glaringly defective,
before the genius Of law will give to
them the needed reforming hand?
Since we began this editorial we have
come across the following items in a
Mondays exchange. In Ohio a hang
ing mob was organized to move on
Springfield to take two scoundrels from
the jail for "%brutally assaulting two
girls at St. Paris while out driving
with them" In the same paper there is
a dispatch from Macon, Ca, dated the
18th of August, that Mrs. j. Melvin
Couch had been assaulted and choked
into insensibility. 1t was by a black. She
bit a piece out Of his face and the
scoundrel bit a piece out Of her arm.
A iynching will come off if the villain
is captured.