The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1902-08-28

JUDGE Lynch sends yearly more
men to that undiscovered coun-
try, from whose bourne no trav-
eler returns" than any other
judge. The days on which the news
papers do not give an account of a
Iynching bee In some part of this great
and glorious country "are few and far
between" While Judge Lynch finds
the south particularly congenial to his
peculiar way of redressing real or fan
cied wrongs, and is in fact in such
great request there that he sometimes
finds it necessary to divide himself and
appear in two or more places at one
and the same time, yet occasionally he
is prevailed upon to leave the land of
cotton and coons, to hold his court in
the hyperbOrean regions of Michigan
and Montana; or in the confines of the
wild and woolly west; or under the
buckeye trees that grow on the banks
of the Ohio, the Miami, the Cuyahoga
and their tributaries; or in almost any
other part of Uncle Sans dominion
between the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans Our colonial possessions have
as yet not reached that stage of enlight-
eminent necessary to appreciate the
benign influence of Judge Lynch's de-
cisions-the mcre's the pity!
The origin of Judge Lynch seems to
be shrOuded in darkness. Several con-
Trajectory opinions concerning his ori-
gin have from time to time been pro-
mulgated by different learned dissem-
inators of antiquarian lore, but they
all fall outside the sacred circle of prob
abilities. We are under the necessity
to content ourselves with Judge Lynch
as we find him. He is amongst us-iN
cannot be denied; his decisions are as
the decisions of the kings of the Medes
and Persians of old-irrevocable. He
frequently makes mistakes and dooms
the wrong man, but what of it? He
makes no pretension to infallibility,
and his services seem to be as much
In demand as ever.
Lynching is resorted to by ungov-
ernable mObs of brutes who generally
call themselves the "best" citizens of
the community wherein lynching
takes place. These best citizens take
it upon themselves to pronounce a
human being-a man and brother
guilty of crime without the least for
mality of trial, and frequently upon
the unsupported testimony of woman
who, had she lived in Caesars time,
would never have been in danger of
becoming Mrs. Caesar. Or the best cit
azens suspect some one of having COM
mitted murder, or stolen horse, or
robbed a house, or store, or chicken
coop, or melon-patch; or of having
burned barn, or house, or haystack,
or strawstack, etc., and if the unhappy
wretch suspected cannot there and
then prove I to the satisfaction of all
that he could not have been a party to
the crime, the most respectable mob
will pronounce him guilty and execute
him on the spot.
But supposing the man under suspi-
cion to be guilty of any of the afore-
mentioned crimes, or all of them, the
totality of the evil results of. his Grim
inality sinks into insigniicance when
compared with the evil consequences
that follow the taking of human life
by mob and without due process of
law. The commission of heinous
crime shocks us and awakens in us
feelings of indignation, but the taking
away of human life by an irresponsible
and ungovernable mob, with all its at
tending barbarities, has a brutalizing
effect upon the whole community.
And again, the guilty wretch may have
been irritated, or provoked, or driven
by necessity, or otherwise sorely
tempted to commit his crime; but if
the yielding to temptation is reprehen-
sible in an individual, how much more
is this true of mob which perhaps
numbers thousandsl