Smyrna times., 1911-08-16
NEGRO IS
BURNED
ALIVE
COatHSViIIe COIOrGd
Man LynChGd.
HOSPITAL COT HIS PYRE
Beaten With Clubs When He
Leaped From Fire.
FORCED BACK THREE TIMES
Victim Was Accused of KiIling
a Policeman.
FORCED BACK THREE TIMES
Victim Was Accused Of KILLING
a Policeman.

A mob of 400 men battered down
the doors of the Coatesviile, Pa, hos
pital, dragged out Ezekiel Walker,
negro, charged with killing Special
Police man Rice Saturday night, car
ried him half mile, manacled to his
hospital cot and burned him alive
The lynching was accomplished only
after the negro, mad with pain, had
leaped from the blazing pyre built
over him and tried to escape, dragging |
the bed to which he was bound by |
his handouts A crowd of 1000 watch
ed the mob leaders beat the creature
with fence rails, and forced him,
shrieking, back into the flames. Three
times he bounded up and three times
was thrust back until, finally, the
Quivering body fell into the fire.
Only then was the mob satisfied. |
The masked men walked back to the
town, and a half hour later they had
dispersed as rapidly as they had gath.
cred.
Walker, the negro victim of the |
lynching, had shot himself in an effort !
to cheat the crowd of armed men who
had searched for him with guns a day
and a night.
A band of 400 men, with handker-
chiefs over their eyes, gathered in
front of ths@>0sphal
There was no revealing of Identities
The men called their leaders mar
shall" and themselves they addressed
as brother"
Walker was in shackles and bound
to a cot in the mems department on
the first floor. Policeman Howe had
been stationed to guard him.
Attendants at the hospital saw the
mob gathering, and ran to the tele-
phone. There was no response over
the wire. The men outside had cut
all wires leading into the building.
Some of the leaders stopped midway
up the lawn and few went on alone.
4 A man with a white mask, whom
the other men had been addressing
as marshal" walked up the steps
leading to the hospital. On the top
step he turned and faced the crowd
on the lawn.
Men" he shouted, "are you going
to allow white man to be downed by
a niger"
He looked about him for an in
stant, and then those in the rear of
the mob surged forward. He was
pushed up toward the hospital steps,
and with a wild yell the man ran up
the steps to the hospital doors.
They battered down and hammered
the glass out of the windows on one
side of the hospital with their fists.
In the corridor of the hospital Pc
liceman Howe met them with drawn
gun. He fired two shots, but the in
furiated men did not notice it. They
brushed the policeman aside anC
pushed away the hospital attendants
who tried to interfere.
Walker lay helpless on his bed il
the right wing of the hospital. Int
the ward tine leaders rushed, othe
patients fainting and screaming from
fright.
Some one produced a rope The
tied the shackled negro to his col
winding the rope about his feet an
underneath the bed.
Then a score of men lay hold c
the rope and ran down the corridor
Out of the hospital they dragged tn
bed and the negro with it,
Walker couldn't make an outer,
His self-inhicted bullet wound in tn
mouth had made this impossible. HI
eyes glared the terror that was his
Out of the building the men dragge
the cot The negro's bed turned an
rolled, the manacles and ropes di
ging into the negro's flesh. tt
crowd outside the hospital gave
cheer as they saw their leaders con
out with the negro. But the leade
with the rope did not stop. Out ov
the lawn they ran to the street Chi
of Police Olmsted tried to II
through the crowd to aid Policem;
Howe, but he was showed back in
the street.
Outside the hospital grounds I
men with the rope started down I
road on a dead run. The cot bump
over the roadway. and rolled frC
side to side. A bowling mob, now
creased to a thousand persons
more, followed.
A half mile to the south, the m
with the rope stopped. They We