LYNCH LAW IN TEXAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2840, 19 August 1908, Page 83

LYNCH LAW IN TEXAS.

■ ' -r — ~~%sv:i” -NINE NEGRO'ES.-EX^GUTED. ■ Nine negroes were "put to deafch yesterday (says the New York Correspondent of •tie Daily Telegraphr"of 23) by a lynching mob of white mien", and as a result there seems a prospect of fa, race war over large tracts of Texas. /tFive young negroes were hanged ,from,/a tree and four othera were riddled with .^fillets. This -wholesale slaughter followed \she murder of two white men at Hemp-hill, in Texas Nothing else, it is declared in the despatches froni/Housto^JTeiaej'->to^day;,'r, wouldi have availed,^^epreasint the grow-'* ing insolence and outtawTgr^-of the blacks. Hugh Dean, a jour* white farmer, and 1 Aaron Johnson, another white- farmer, ■were shot, it is. asserted, by negroes, and it \pas because the friends of the deceased believed that., justices. wa§ being delayed that they broke down th§ "doors of the (gaol in which eucdragfo ?^plrai6^&ie3xH^«J,~, and took them. away to- tli© woods } anctep a powerful annied 1 escortv-i^Ag.they. reached; the place of execution/ — a picturesque grove of oaks— <the leader of the lynchers said to the trembling blacks, .'"Say^your prayers; we'll "give you seven minutes." The riegroes'fell' op -their knees panicstricken, and hegan praying and cureing most -excitedly. In the meantime the seven^ minutes bad • been ticked off, and then, a rope descended over each negro's head. One of them sue-., oeeded in detaching himself from the rope/ and commenced to run, but before "he had gone a hundred yards a shower of bullets killed him.' . , y Subsequently -three other negroes', all suc'pected of -being concerned in the' death of Mr Dean .and 3fe* 1 Johnson, were discovered and shot before midnight. The scene of these promiscuous slaughteringsn gs was laid in a local option community. Mr Dean, a white farmer,, wajs killed at a negro church, whither, he' had J -gone dandestinely to buy a bottle, of whisky from a ( member of the corigregatidnj,^ho dealt 'Sn' contraband. He was 'fiherb 3o;m f in> the" club adjoining the church, -which is>. a rallying-place for the n'egK>es. §ince t]iat event the friction between ,£he two races ■has been very serious, and the affair was~ brought to a climax by'the-mirrderof *Mr Aaron Johnson in his home laSfc'^Saturday^ Johnson was lying on a cot playing with his baby, while nis wife sat near. A charge from a double-barrellel gun crashed through the window, and Johnson was killed immediately. The deceased man was a friend of Mr Dean, and very active in upholding whites against blacks. At the present time, while whifes^and negroes are going about anned 1 inCount}-, Texas, there is a chance of a more? serious feud at any moment, and such, feud may expand beyond the limits of its 1 place of origin. Amongst the white residents of the. Southern States there seems to be a general agreement' tliafr ar - <r few . good lynchings," especially in -places where the blacks outnumber the whites, would' b& more effective in curbing the viciousness of the negroes than any number of goals and courts.