The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-06-16
rwO FINE ILLUMINATING NORTHs
ERN .sINCIDENTS.o

the people in Connecticut are quite
human after all. They nave no mercy
for a. negro if he rapes a white woman.
4 dispatch was sent on. 18th from
Bridgeport, to this effect:
Residents Of h town Of Stratford
arc i'm "a, state of wild excitement over
an outrage perpetrated yesterday morn
In, g.when a negro burst into the nome
Of Mrs. Margaret Roberts, bound her
with a rope and then, gagging her with
II potato, assaulted her.
1.-The negro is still att large, but is be-
ing hunted by posses headed by sher-
ifs and local policemen. There are de-
t~Iarations that the negro will be lynch
ed when caught
That is the story. Stratford Is four
miles from Bridgeport. Mrs. Roberts
vas greatly depressed and tainted, and
hours after when her daughter returned
h mothers unconscious form lay Upon
the floor. She is in a critical condltloh.
The negro who is a beast and not a man
yysu rape a white woman wherever ne
can find her. If New England could
have 300 rape in three months, as kew.
DE. Hoss, editor of the Nashville Chris
tan Advocate, says occurred in the
south in that time, they would not only
hang but they would burn too as was
done in New England in the witch
burning times. 1t is a good tnlng 10
put yourself in his place" If the north
could have as great dose OF violence,
raping and numbering to rape, it would
learn the virtue of Christian charity
and cease to curse out the south. The
dispatch says: "Lynching in Connect
Icirt is almost unknown, but the negro,
il is said. will stand no chance if he
Fails into the hands of one of the
oosses."
Poor human nature makes some
times a very ugly exposure, and it is
confined to no latitude or longitude or
country or tongue. There is another
fine exhibition of northern restraint and
human manifestation. An incident has
occurred in Maine lately will serve 80
point a moral and adorn a tale" Mob
violence asserts itself "up there" and
in the south, but they can get very hot
ia the collar in YankeedOOledom over
rse-hite outrages in he south or when
A. brute OF a negro lays his paws upon
white decency and virtue. The Brook
Eyn IN. " Eagle, has an article on a
Maine incident of which we know moth
Ing. 1t says:
THE mob story which comes this
morning from the little town OF Levant
Me., goes to show that human nature
nue. the same the world over
and THAT a rural town in ain is just
as likely to be overcome with the mop
spirit as a rural county IN georgia.
The Maine nob did not go ITO any such
Lengths as the one which burned sam
Hose; it did not do murder, even, ouI
contentted itself with tarring and teatn-
zring the victim and riding him on a
rail. But the punishment was as eX-
cessive for the offenSe as That Wnlch
the Georgia mob inflicted on Hose. II
showed as Enthusiastically the DONNA
sion of the mob spirit and Indicated
that if these citizens of the Pine Tree
State had been set face to race WIN
Hoses terrible crime they would PROB
ably have gone to as extreme lenSthS III
their punishment.
''Higgins. the man whom they did
ISnch, was a Methodist lay preacher,
xho came into the community seven
years ago and has lately taken up tine
doctrine of sanctification and holiness
and has been conducting meetings. OF
such fervor that the mob believed he
had driven some women practically in
sane on religion and that his doctrines
had interfered with their family duties.
The preacher was hauled out of the
house of a farmer, where he was mold
ing a meeting and where his convert
went on with their singing and exhor-
cation until their leader came back some
nours later with his coating of tar n
Feathers"
That is inspiring. 1t is uplifting. 1t
would thill the mighty soul of Gov.
Teddy Roosevelt. Tarred and feath-
cred for preaching holiness, a plain
Bib doctrine, but often misunderstood
and onslaught. The Brooklyn Eagle,
edited by DIR. st. Clair McKilway, an
uncle of the able editor of the Char
sytSe Presbyterian Standard, writes far
ther of the Illuminating and inspiring
and tolerant Maine incident" as fol-
lows:
eff h same crowd of men had been
xutiamed by muredr or assault is there
any likelihood hat they would have
stopped with tar and feathers and a
rail? Would not the instinct of blood
for blood nav been as powerful with
them as it was in Georgia? The
chances are that under the anne prov
socation they would lave done just what
the Georgians did. That does not excuse
1he Georgians but a consideration of
It should do away with the idea that
the southern people are a race apart,
given oven to violence and brutality
seward negroes merely because they
are negroes"
TEDDY ROOSEVELT FOAMING AT