The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-06-29
The Growth of Mob Law

Inc North is S1lenced in its regula-
ton complaints against the South be-
cause of the mastery of lynch law.
The tragedies of Urbana, Ohio, where
a negro who assaulted {, respectable
white woman was forcibly taken from
the custody of the sheriff and executed
by mol violence after two citizens had
been killed and eleven WOunded by the
military in i'll directed efforts to MAIN
tain the authority of law, and the later
tragedy at Princess Anne, Nd, where
a negro was executed by a mob last
week after he had been convicted and
sentenced to death for feloniously
assaulting a white woman, furnish i'm
pressive lessons alike to the north and
the South as to the growth of mob law
in both sections of the country.
While %felonious assaults upon women
in nearly or quite all the Southern
States are punished by death, in the
Northern States it is not a capital
offence, but there is even greater eX-
cuse for mob violence in the South
than in the North. These assaults
come almost invariably from brutal
negroes, and in the South, with it's
parse settlements, the unprotected
condition of families, and the immense
proportion of cOlOred population, it re-
quires the sWiftest and most terrible
punishment for such OffenseS. True if
the law is allowed to take it's course in
the South, the punishment for such a
crime is death, but the penalties of
the law have little influence in deter
ring the ignorant and brutal class of
negroes who commit these OffenSeS.
While the mastery of mob law does in
some measure terrify and restrain
them.
1t should be remembered, also, hat
the increase OF mob law during the
last few years is not so much the nat
ural Outgrowth of laWless violence as
it is the result of the alarming increase
of f%elOniOuS assaults upon women by
brutal negroes. While slavery existed
in this country such a%ssault We're ex-
tremely rare, indeed, almost unknown,
either North or South, but today there
is hardly a week hat does not record
the execution by mob law of some such
criminal. 1t is the increase of this
terrible crime that has logically in
creased the mastery of mob law and
it is we'll to consider and look squarely
in the face his fearful truth.
Tt is the duty of every good citizen
to demand that the law shall be main
tanned under all circumstances, and the
public press of the country, both
North and South, has maintained it
with great fidelity. but it must now be
evident to all who intelligently and
. AK obJNN
that the increse of this fearful crime
must so impress the public generally
that when it is committed in any COM
munity however intelligent, peaceful
and law abiding, it is with the --latest
difficulty that the mastery Of the law
a be maintained. Two exhibitions of
lynch law in Ohio and Maryland with
in a week conclusively establish the
fact that there is no community in the
north that can now be trusted to sue
cessfully resist mob law in cases of
such %felOnious asSauits upon ome
Mob law is growing solely because
the crime for which the law seems to
furnish no adequate restraint or rem
edy has been growing with appalling
rapidity, and it is best to face the truth
as it is. Mob law must be restrained
because if once established for one
crime, it must steadily extend to other
crimes and demoraliZe the most law
abiding people of the world, but how
ii is to be done? Let those who mer-
cilessly criticise the mobs of Urbana
and Princess Ann tell how the crime
that provokes this lawlessness is 20 be
Observation-Disclosures Times.