DREADFUL LYNCHING SCENE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 84

DREADFUL LYNCHING SCENE.

A mob 10,000 strong, including manywomen, lynched a negro and a white man named Salzner, of German birth, at Cairo, Illinois, last night (says the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph on November 12), and incidentally committed a few other crimes. James, the negro, was hanged from a public arch. The rope broke, and at least 500 shots were poured into his body. He made a partial confession, and implicated another negro named Alexander, whom the mob sought unsuccesfully until the early hours of this morning. After the death of James the mob stormed the gaol in an effort to find Alexander, who had been released. They battered down a steel cell, and dragged out Salzner, a white man charged with killing his wife. Salzner was quickly strung up, despite his pitiful pleadings, and the evercrowing crowd turned again to search for Alexander. Governor Dineen, who had ordered five companies of the National Guard to Cairo at midnight, ordered five more to proceed thither under arms. James was lynched in the most prominent square of the city. The arch was brilliantly illuminated by electric lights, the current being switched on specially for the execution. The women present were the first to pull the rope. When it broke the frenzy of the mob became uncontrollable, and they fired volley after volley into James's body, shooting him to pieces. Then they dragged the corpse more than a mile, and burned it in the alley where the murder was committed. A woman applied the torch. "Before the fire was started," says the New York World's correspondent, "the negro's head was cut off and placed on one end of a pole, the other end being stuck in the ground. The heart was taken out and cut into small pieces, which were passed among the me; as souvenirs. Pieces of the rope with which he was hanged, after being soaked in the negro's blood, were also handed about as souvenirs." At least 10,000 persons witnessed the lynching. Sheriff Davis had been iieeing from the mob for 24 hours with the prisoner. Driven from town to town by menacing crowds, they had taken to the woods, but the avengers found them. When the pursuers, about 10,000 strong, arived at Cairo they were met by a howling mob of 5000 others. They marched the negro direct to the public arch, headed by women, who were anxious to help to do the work. The sheriff pleaded for the life of the prisoner, but was taken in charge by part of the mob, whilst the rest rushed the negro to the funeral pyre. The mob that chased the sheriff and the negro was so large that it scoured the entire county from Karnack to Vienna, Illinois, a distance of 16 miles. When found by the mob the negro was handcuffed between two officers, and all three were lying on the bank of a creek, so weak from hunger, exposure, and the futile attempt to elude the mob that they were not able to make much resistance. At every pointwhere he tried to take a train the sheriff was blocked by a menacing crowd. The quest for the missing man, Alexander, still continues. There are 12,000,000 coloured people in the States, and it is urged in defence of the lynching, that nothing else seems so effectual in restraining the lawlessness of bad blacks. The lynching of the white man Salzner was an unrehearsed episode, and it is not generally approved. The Mayor of Cairo expressed his belief that-the lynchings would have a salutary effect. He declares murderers in Cairo have escaped because juries have hitherto failed to convict. To use his own words : "Murder in Cairo, I regret to say, has been tolerably safe. Now I believe that Cairo will be peaceful and law-abid-ing."

A later message reported that Alexander was safely lodged in. the county gaol by the sheriff's officers, after having been hidden for several hours. The mob soon learned that the negro had arrived at the gaol, but decided not to attempt to molest him for the present.