MOB PASSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 110, 12 May 1930, Page 7

MOB PASSION.

LYNCH LAW IN TEXAS.

Gaol Burned and Imprisoned

Negro Incinerated.

ATTACK ON WHITE WOMAN.

(United P.A.-Electric Telegraph-Copyright)

NEW YORK, May 11

National Guardsmen aided by Texas Rangers failed to prevent a mob burning a gaol at Sherman, Texas, iii which a negro was being held for attacking a white woman. The Governor, Mr., D. Moody, had sent an order to hold the mob if possible, but not to shoot anybody.

Tho Rangers repelled the rioters three times Avith gas bombs, but the ' mob finally entered the building, in which the courthouse was also contained, and poured petrol on the floors. Then they set fire to the structure, from which all escaped but tho negro, who was incinerated in a steel vault where he had been placed' for his own protection." Firemen fought furiously in an endeavour to quench the flames, but the mob cut their hose-pipes. Later violence broke one again. A mob of several thousand people fought National Guardsmen in the main square of tkotown. Another group stormed the gaol once more and tore down or dynamited tho walls to ascertain if the negro»had been burned as the officials had declared. Two men were shot and Captain Dunlap, commanding tho Guardsmen, was badly injured. The negro quarter of the city now is deserted. The authorities fear further trouble, as the mob there is showing uncontrollable and apparently increasing fury. Negro Section Fired. Later, fifteen of the alleged leaders of tlie mob cut open with acetylene torches the vault in which the negro who was the object of the disturbance had been suffocated. They dragged out his body and hung it to the bough of a tree. Tbey were all arrested by Guardsmen, but eleven of them were quickly discharged.

At'a mass meeting of city and county .>mcist?s it was decided to request the Governor to place the city under military }a\V. The mob- spent twelve hours in rushing through the city doing damage to property and seeking negroes upon whom to wreak their revenge. They ended their reign of terror only after they had burned three blocks of buildings in the negro section, when heavy rain caused them to disperse with the coining of daylight. They left the city under the control of State police and troops.

Never in recent years has an American city lived through such scenes of awful rioting and uncontrolled mob passions.