years. Not fifty of these were for political causes; the rest were for all
manner of accusations from that of rape of white women, to the case of the
boy Will Lewis who was hanged at Tullahoma, Tenn., last year for being
drunk and "sassy" to white folks.

These statistics compiled by the _Chicago Tribune_ were given the first of
this year (1892). Since then, not less than one hundred and fifty have
been known to have met violent death at the hands of cruel bloodthirsty
mobs during the past nine months.

To palliate this record (which grows worse as the Afro-American becomes
intelligent) and excuse some of the most heinous crimes that ever stained
the history of a country, the South is shielding itself behind the
plausible screen of defending the honor of its women. This, too, in the
face of the fact that only _one-third_ of the 728 victims to mobs have
been _charged_ with rape, to say nothing of those of that one-third who
were innocent of the charge. A white correspondent of the _Baltimore Sun_
declares that the Afro-American who was lynched in Chestertown, Md., in
May for assault on a white girl was innocent; that the deed was done by a
white man who had since disappeared. The girl herself maintained that her
assailant was a white man. When that poor Afro-American was murdered, the
whites excused their refusal of a trial on the ground that they wished to
spare the white girl the mortification of having to testify in court.

This cry has had its effect. It has closed the heart, stifled the
conscience, warped the judgment and hushed the voice of press and pulpit
on the subject of lynch law throughout this "land of liberty." Men who
stand high in the esteem of the public for Christian character, for moral
and physical courage, for devotion to the principles of equal and exact
justice to all, and for great sagacity, stand as cowards who fear to open