who signs his name to his communication, in a land where grand juries are sworn to investigate, where judges and juries are sworn to administer the law and sheriffs are paid to execute the decrees of the courts, and where, in fact, every instrument of civilization is supposed to work for the common good of all citizens, that this matter was duly investigated, the criminals apprehended and the punishment meted out to the murderers.  But this is a mistake; nothing of the kind was done or attempted.  Six months after the publication, above referred to, an investigator, writing to find out what had been done in the matter, received the following reply: 

  Office of
  S.S.  Glover,
  sheriff and collector,
  Lonoke county.

  Lonoke, Ark., 9-12-1892

  Geo. Washington, Esq.,
  Chicago, Ill.

  Dear sir:—­The parties who killed Hamp Briscoe February the ninth, have
  never been arrested.  The parties are still in the county.  It was done by
  some of the citizens, and those who know will not tell.

  S.S.  Glover, Sheriff

Thus acts the mob with the victim of its fury, conscious that it will never be called to an account.  Not only is this true, but the moral support of those who are chosen by the people to execute the law, is frequently given to the support of lawlessness and mob violence.  The press and even the pulpit, in the main either by silence or open apology, have condoned and encouraged this state of anarchy.

TORTURED AND BURNED IN TEXAS

Never In the history of civilization has any Christian people stooped to such shocking brutality and indescribable barbarism as that which characterized the people of Paris, Texas, and adjacent communities on the first of February, 1893.  The cause of this awful outbreak of human passion was the murder of a four-year-old child, daughter of a man named Vance.  This man, Vance, had been a police officer in Paris for years, and was known to be a man of bad temper, overbearing manner and given to harshly treating the prisoners under his care.  He had arrested Smith and, it is said, cruelly mistreated him.  Whether or not the murder of his child was an art of fiendish revenge, it has not been shown, but many persons who know of the incident have suggested that the secret of the attack on the child lay in a desire for revenge against its father.

In the same town there lived a Negro, named Henry Smith, a well-known character, a kind of roustabout, who was generally considered a harmless, weak-minded fellow, not capable of doing any important work, but sufficiently able to do chores and odd jobs around the houses of the white people who cared to employ him.  A few days before the final tragedy, this man, Smith, was accused of murdering Myrtle Vance.  The crime of murder was of itself bad enough, and