BLACKS AND WHITES

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 280, 19 August 1908, Page 7

BLACKS AND WHITES

LYNCHING ORGIES. GAOL DOORS BATTERED DOWN. SEXUAL CRIME. (by TELEGRAI'II —'PItESS ASSOCIATION —COITUIGHT.) (Rec. August 19, 0.25 a.m.) . . London, August 18. The "Daily Mail's" New York correspondent states that owing to negroes' crimes against white women, lynching orgies are imminent in Rome (Georgia), and Galveston, principal seaport of Texas. The correspondent adds that a mob battered down the doors of tho gaol at Huntington, Long Island, and were only prevented by the timely arrival of the cavalry from seizing and lynching a negro prisoner. The' latter was then removed to a place of safety. ; THE ILLINOIS RIOTS. PROSECUTIONS. • 9 New York, August 18. In connection with the scenes at Illinois — where, in revenge for an assault on a white woman, armed whites attacked the negro quarter and killed innocent men—tho Governor of Illinois has indicted 200 whites for rioting. LAWLESSNESS IN AMERICAN STATES.

r CONVICT LEASE SYSTEM. : The extent to which lawlessness prevails in some of the American State? is illustrated, not only by the periodical lyuchings, but by the vfay in which the'convict, lease system flourishes, grinding down negro and white alike who tall'within its clutclies. .The "Spectator" some little timo ago published a most. interesting review of two publications on the subject of the convict lease iij America—oiip a pamphlet by Clarissa 0. ICeeJer, tile other a paper in the "Nineteenth Century"' on "Peonage in the United States," by jlary G. Terrell. The "Spectator" iays the pamphlet is '-'as painful to read as anything of the sort that has ever come under our notice," and goes'on to say:—"One's first impulse is to say: r ßut this is an exaggeration. It is 'incredible that such inhuman" crupltips and hideous' wrongs should be tolerated in a generous,, freo, and civilised country liko the United States.' If all that is written here i 3 true,' there are districts where the word 'Emancipation' is nothing but an empty mockery, for under the convict lease system there are men and women, both white and coloured, who are : the victims of injustices and tortures which could not have been exceeded in the days of slavery before the Aniericari Civil War. Unhappily, experience proves that when onc.e the vicious principles which underlie slavery and quasi-slayery are admitted anything may follow. Responsibility is distributed among the staffs of the institutions which depend for their prosperity on the magnitude and punctuality of the labour tribute. Even if we do not : take the cases described in the pamphlet before us as typical, there is still enough which is outside the possibility of dispute to make one isk how any self-respecting State can ppssibly consent to. the existence of a system in' which a premium is'put' pn crime (and if crime runs short, on wrongful imprisonment), because those who lease labour from the State make handsome profits out of it. "Prisons' are scanty in the Southern States, and one State after another drifted into the practice of hiring out the labour of fionvicts fo companies-. Twelve States now employ this system. Take Tennessee, for example felony convicts were first leased in 1870. Some years after the adoption of the system the convjcts were leased for a term of years to tjie Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, one of the wealthiest corporations in the South with, as was alleged*'two'influential politicians of the North at its head. The State received annually 101,000 dollars .from i the-labour of the convicts, and the profits realised by the corporation were estimated to be about the same amount . . . . In February, 1889, the. Legislative" prison committee investigated the prisons fit the riiines where the male convicts were" worked, and the buildings where the men were housed at night were reported by members of the committee to bo board shanties, unfit for the habitation ot human beings."' They were constructed of rough board plapks, spiked up and down, and unplastefed and unsealed. i'ho beds were ticks'filled with filthy straw, and the covering scant arid filthy. Rough boards formed the platform for the continuous rows of beds.' They reported "cruel and inhuman whippings witlj a heavy strap on tha naked backs of the convicts for failure to get out tasks," and "for neatly every thine." Convicts were pporly fed and scantily clothed, soma having pn no socks in winter , . . . The method of punishment was to. lay the convict flat on his stomach'and whip him'on his'naked hack with a heavy leather strap attached to a hapdle. The nujjibe) - . pf licks varied from ten to sixty laid on sometimes ivith both hands, by a stalwart "guard. T|ie punishment was inflicted for' all breaches of rules and for failure to do the task assigned, which was about four tons of coal per day.' "The New York 'Sun' of September 11, 1891, said is not counted as inability to work. Thp policy is to work him (the convict) until ho urops and then cure him if possible; if not, let him make way fbr some other, for there is never a lack . .. The guard curses, kicks, clubs, or kills at pleasure; The company asks no questions; the State.has meagre chance of finding the truth, and wotild be slow to act unless public \ indignation should be aroused. To make a dash for liberty is simply a way of committing suicide . . . . convicts frk. (juently court death by niajring this bold dash.. The rifle rings out : ... A hole is dug arid the dead zebra is put out of sight speedily. Any giiard pan tell ypu.niapy a tf.le, arm the chances are he ivill boiist arid laUgh a gpoil deal.' In Alabama ill 1889 an inspector reported that during the first two'weeks of June, when the average number of convicts was one hundred and sixty-five, there were one hundred and thirty-seven floggings. In 1800 the Penitentiary Committee in ' the same State declared ' tha convict lease system is slavery in its worst aspects.' Dr. Bragg, in a,Report to the Governor of Alabama as recently as January last, says:—'The county ccnyict system is worse than ever before iii its history. The demand for labour arid fees has become so great that most of them go now to the mines whore many of them are unfit for such labour, consequently it is not long before they pass from earth, .' . . . If the State wishes to kill its convicts it should do it directly -.and not, indirectly. .... If the couvjct develops tuberculosis or any other disease he has to stay in camp until it means death to a large proportion.' "Dr. Bragg adds. that many of these poor defenceless creatures ought never to have been arrested at fill-' In an Alabama paper told of seventeen white men and three negroes who had been sent tied together to the Pratt Mines. ' Not one of tho tw ; enty had been tried. Among them tvps a doctor from New Yprk. They'had arrestod for unlawfully travelling ill trains, but every one professed to be inuocent. They had been captured by a manwhp was paid two dollars for every person he arrested pri that charge."