ruffian is watching and waiting for this opportunity. The swift
punishment which invariably follows these horrible crimes doubtless acts
as a deterring effect upon the Negroes in that immediate neighborhood
for a short time. But the lesson is not widely learned nor long
remembered. Then such crimes, equally atrocious, have happened in quick
succession, one in Tennessee, one in Arkansas, and one in Alabama. The
facts of the crime appear to appeal more to the Negro's lustful
imagination than the facts of the punishment do to his fears. He sets
aside all fear of death in any form when opportunity is found for the
gratification of his bestial desires.

There is small reason to hope for any change for the better. The
commission of this crime grows more frequent every year. The generation
of Negroes which have grown up since the war have lost in large measure
the traditional and wholesome awe of the white race which kept the
Negroes in subjection, even when their masters were in the army, and
their families left unprotected except by the slaves themselves. There
is no longer a restraint upon the brute passion of the Negro.

What is to be done? The crime of rape is always horrible, but the
Southern man there is nothing which so fills the soul with horror,
loathing and fury as the outraging of a white woman by a Negro. It is
the race question in the ugliest, vilest, most dangerous aspect. The
Negro as a political factor can be controlled. But neither laws nor
lynchings can subdue his lusts. Sooner or later it will force a crisis.
We do not know in what form it will come.

In its issue of June 4, the _Memphis Evening Scimitar_ gives the following
excuse for lynch law: