SPRINGFIELD RIOTS QUELLED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 197, 18 August 1908, Page 5

SPRINGFIELD RIOTS QUELLED.

MOBS CHARGED BY CAVALRY. NEGROES' PITEOUS POSITION. INNOCENT BLACKS LYNCHES. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, August 17. The Washington correspondent of "The Times" describes the gratuitous brutality of the mob at Springfield as surpassing any racial excesses of recent years. When the mob attempted to lynch two negroes in gaol, one accused of a crime called an official, who procured a motor car and took both of them away. The mob, thus foiled, then wrecked a restaurant belonging to the owner of the motor. The soldiers ia a tussle at this stage killed two and wounded 20 others. The mob thereupon rushed the negro quarter, nearly all the occupants of which bad taken refuge in the arsenal or suburbs. The mob destroyed their property, and two innocent negroes were caught and lynched. An attempt to reach the arsenal was frustrated. A brick seriously injured Mr. ClaflLn (the Prohibition party's candidate for the Presidency) in ihe head, while shielding a negro. Reuters Springfield correspondent states that the cavalry charged the mobs, and that the riots have been quelled, but the situation of the negroes is piteous, and few venture into the streets.