The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-08-18

~ oh6A III liz O. %AN 1t~1 HUM
Wilmington. Del, Of the fearful venge-I
ance wreaked by a mob upon a negro
fend has tended to blind us TO the awful
enormitv of his crime-the most terrible
known to humanity in its utmost degrade
ton. That an innocent young girl should
be first dishonored and then mercilessly
butchered by a ~satiated brute, whose mere
touch in familiarity the instinct OF ages
has taught her to consider "a pollution,
rouses the masses to a feeling Of frenzy.
Every circumstance OF the crIm-the
criminals b~rutishness, his strength, the
baseness Of his motive, his grovelling
cowardice, the infinite p%itifulness and
hopelessness of the fate OF the victim
pleads for speedy and stern retribution.
Beneath the veneer OF civilization man Is
still a savage, and the old Babyionian and
Hebrew idea OF a tooth Tor a tooth. an
eye for an eye, appeals to him, while rea-
son says that no eXpiation which the erin
inal can suffer can equal the pangs IN
fiicted on the victim. Our history from
the rude times of pioneer and frontier
life has made the idea OF lynch law
phrase of grim irony-familiar, and, re-
greet 1t as we may, when such enormitIeS
are perpetrated, this idea springs at once
10 Llle ullHu Ol Iut primitive man JUST VII
der the surface of our ordinarily law
abiding citizen. The primitive men, Celts
or Teutons, from whom our people are
descended were generous IN their virtues
and their vices. and the brutal aberra-
tiOns Of their descendants are not alto
gether ignoble. Deep down III our hearts
some instinct pleads IN palliation Of the
acts Of a mob who lynches a criminal OF
this base type, and combats the horror
which we feel at their more than savage
cruelty. But when we sit calmly to rea-
son of the thing and its
we all admit that lynch law is wholly bad
and pernicious. 1t WeakeIS our respect
for all law, that sentiment, yet SO imper-
feet in US all, whose gradual advance
through ages OF successive ebb and flow
has made possible the great world States
of today and our boosted civilization. We
cannot hope to crush out such outbreaks
IN an instant, but public sentiment and
all legislation should be directed to that
end, and we may hope that future ages
will see their utter eXtlrpatlon when the
crimes whence lynch law draws its life
shall become rarer than they are among
the ha~lf-sayage elements OF our popula-
ton. We may realize upon what a deli
cate adjustment of social forces these out
breaks depend, when we consider that the
acts and utterances of one man promin-
ent in official life may stir up sentiments
leading to an orgy of lawlessness in vari-
Gus parts of the country.
Bacon has contributed no profounder
truth or grander sentiment to human
thought than when he said, 1.-The duties
of life are more than life" Whether he
knew it or not, upon that maxim the
sheriff of Evansville, Ind, acted III re
pelling the mob VINO were seeking the
life Of a negro murderer in his custody.
That thought acted UPON with calm BRAY
cry by the officers of the law will effect
much in lessening the occurrences OF lynch
ings. Until the day of its final eXtinc-
ton shall come, here IS one help III mini
MIXING the evil; the selection Of the right
man for the office of sheriff, not the
smooth politician, but the man who re
CARDS the duties of life-the duties of his
office which he has sworn to perform
as more than his life. How much one
man can do who does both act and know,
the history of a few brave sheriffs IN
Alabama, in Indiana, and elsewhere has
taught us.
But with our present standards of du-
ty by sheriffs and sworn officers of the
law, the evil of lynching seems increasing,
not becoming ess-lif is of more value
than the duties of life to these men. A
dissenting opinion by the Chief Justice of
North Carolina in a recent case, State V.
Cole, A S. E. Rep. 391, examine the
growth of lynching in a way interesting
and suggestive, if, it must be confessed,
somewhat irrelevant to the legal question
before the court. There Is nothing that
is more subversive of good government
says Chief Justice Clark, than lynchings,
yet more men have been executed IN this
mode in North Carolina in the last four
teen years than by lawful process, and
some years twice as many, as appears by
the reports of the Acknowledgement. The
last message of the Governor of the State
reports eight executed by lynch law in
the last two years, OF whom three only
were lynched for rape, and III the same
period only five were executed by the
sheriff for all offenses." This increase of
lynching the Chief Justice traces to the
feeling of the people that fragrant crimes
should receive sure and swift capital pun
ishment, and a distrust of the criminal law
ana an Administration or the criminal law
which in the past twelve years has seen
the number of murders In the State
doubled, while manslaughter has increas-
/, ed fourfold and other crimes seventy per
cent. I'm a trial for any capital offense,
apart from other reasons, the mode Of
trial prescribed by legislation of itself
renders a conviction for murder in the
first degree almost an impossibility Gin
North Carolina) except in cases of sheer
poisoning or lying in wait, if the prisoner
IS able to obtain able and skilful counsel >
For, IN an effort to mitigate the barba-
rlsm OF the common law, the legislature
has gone on giving greater and greater
advantages to the defendant, until now he
has twenty-three peremptory challenges,
while the State has but four. Our statute
law says murder shall be punished with
death. In practice, in this State and some
others, the punishment IS ordinarily a
fine paid by the accused to his counsel as
a fee, and a far heavier fine paid by the
~aw-abiding people for the costs of the