“LYNCH LAW"

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5731, 28 October 1905, Page 10

“LYNCH LAW"

Tho origin of tie expression “Lynch law” is learnedly debated by Dr. J. E. Cutter in a hook on tno subject jus* issued by, Longmans. No credence is. given to the attempt to trace it to Lynch, tho inflexible magistrate of Galway, who in 1493 tried, sentenced, and executed his own son for murder. Dr. Cutter brings new evidence from Cob William Martin’s “Narrative of Frontier Life” prepared in 1842. „ Tho colonol r writing with reference to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, says:—■ “In those times there wore a great many had men settled along tho frontiers, who by their thefts annoyed the country greatly, insomuch that tho people entered into combinations to suppress them, and formed companies called regulators. They formed in miltary stylo, with officers, etc. They. also organised a court, and appointod_ some, throe or four of their aged, discreet men judges to try criminal cases, award punishments, etc. Tho company would, bring up suspected fellows, and the court would try them. But they seldom extended punishment beyond whipping and driving them from the country, sometimes making them pay for property stolen when they had the moans. This nun! ''' l of breaking up combinations of rogues was first sot on foot hv Colonel Charles Lynch, of Bedford County, Va., where I war raised. Ho Mid my father were aormainted. Lynch at first punished with 39 stripes, taking, as I suppoc-e, Mosea for ills model. And this was for a. great while called Lynch's law, meaning all unlawful Whipping. Any 'of the old men now in tho South and West oar tell tho moaning of Lynch’s law.”