Richmond planet., 1903-02-14

The New Orleans, La, Times Demo.
crat In its issue of Jan. 2S, 1903, an
nounoed that white men faced a court
of law at Kosciusko, Miss, for the
lynching Of Negroes for the first time
IN the history of Missipsippi.
1t was habeas corpus hearing before
Judge w. F. Stephen in order to secure
bail. The correspondent says: "The
twelve men indicted for the lync hing
OF the Negroes, Hallum and Moore and
now In custody, show that they realize
the gravity of the case. At first they
were inclined TO smile at the indict-
p'ent us nlerc forrn Then the arres Is
and imprisonment followed, and the
discomforts of the situation dawned up-
on them They appeared in court and
witnessed the vigorous fight made by
the States representatives to remand
them to prison without bail to await
their trial. They found themselves
face to face with the common
1act that they were being pros
ecuted by able attorneys and learned
the seriousness of the charge. This i'm
presslon mirrored itself on their
faces
The white men charged with the
crime are J. r. Tucker, J f. Green.
j. j.. Green, G. NJ Carleste, J. F.
Whaitey, Lee Whaitey, Noah Lindsey.
Aleck Kirk, Bill sGoff, Oliver Wasson'
and Shelly Burton.
The following is the correspondence:
Kosciusko, Miss, Jan. 27.-The sim.
pie story of the crime for which the
twenty -elght men were indicted by the
grand jury OF Attala county sufficiently
explains the acting of that body.
Just about dusk of an evening in last
July several Negro women made their
way to clump of trees edging an old
Held. Before approaching too closely
they reconnoitered. There was moth
ing In sight to frighten them. The
neld was bare CT everything save dead
stubble, and from the shadow of the
trees came no sound. They plucked
up their courage and began to scan the
ground narrowly, as if in search of
something lost. They found it,
without warning they came upon a
horrible spectacle. At the foot of a
small 1--we oak tree lay two inanimate
bodies. Both were be und as to wrists
ana ankles with trace-chains secured
with padlocks. The chains were looped
thatthe prisoners might escape. There
was no danger of escape now. Clothing
and bodies punctured with bullet holes
and soaked with blood told the tale of
how they came TO their end
Inc women released the bodies from
the chains that bound them even i'm
death. They moaned after the manner
IN their race, giving vent to their grief
In the monotonous chanting of sorrow
that has an indescribatle accent of
welrdness. The bodies i.islinked from
the tree, they composed themselves as
best they might. A wagon was sum
moned that had waited on the edge of
the held. The two men were placed i'm
II and taken to what they once called
burial.
1t was the general opinion in the
"Cross Roads" neighborhood of Alfalfa
county that this was the final scene i'm
the tragedy. No one dreamed that any-
thing could come of it. Those who had
participated in the killing of the two
Negro men slept peacefully and with
clean consclences. They believed thar
they had put down a threatened upris-
ing OF the blacks in that district and
had set an example that would substan-
TALLY curb the insolence of certain ele-
ments OF the Negro population for some
time to come: Had any one suggested
that there might be an epilogue to the
tragedy he would have been regarded
as an IDLE babbler. The people Of the
''Cross Roads" neighborhood knew q
thing or two. And, besides thev were
precedents
CAUSE OF THE LYNcH1NG.