ILLINOIS HAS A LYNCHING

In the month of June, 1893, the proud commonwealth of Illinois joined the ranks of Lynching States.  Illinois, which gave to the world the immortal heroes, Lincoln, Grant and Logan, trailed its banner of justice in the dust—­dyed its hands red in the blood of a man not proven guilty of crime.

June 3,1893, the country about Decatur, one of the largest cities of the state was startled with the cry that a white woman had been assaulted by a colored tramp.  Three days later a colored man named Samuel Bush was arrested and put in jail.  A white man testified that Bush, on the day of the assault, asked him where he could get a drink and he pointed to the house where the farmer’s wife was subsequently said to have been assaulted.  Bush said he went to the well but did not go near the house, and did not assault the woman.  After he was arrested the alleged victim did not see him to identify him—­he was presumed to be guilty.

The citizens determined to kill him.  The mob gathered, went to the jail, met with no resistance, took the suspected man, dragged him out tearing every stitch of clothing from his body, then hanged him to a telegraph pole.  The grand jury refused to indict the lynchers though the names of over twenty persons who were leaders in the mob were well known.  In fact twenty-two persons were indicted, but the grand jurors and the prosecuting attorney disagreed as to the form of the indictments, which caused the jurors to change their minds.  All indictments were reconsidered and the matter was dropped.  Not one of the dozens of men prominent in that murder have suffered a whit more inconvenience for the butchery of that man, than they would have suffered for shooting a dog.

COLOR LINE JUSTICE

In Baltimore, Maryland, a gang of white ruffians assaulted a respectable colored girl who was out walking with a young man of her own race.  They held her escort and outraged the girl.  It was a deed dastardly enough to arouse Southern blood, which gives its horror of rape as excuse for lawlessness, but she was a colored woman.  The case went to the courts and they were acquitted.

In Nashville, Tennessee, there was a white man, Pat Hanifan, who outraged a little colored girl, and from the physical injuries received she was ruined for life.  He was jailed for six months, discharged, and is now a detective in that city.  In the same city, last May, a white man outraged a colored girl in a drug store.  He was arrested and released on bail at the trial.  It was rumored that five hundred colored men had organized to lynch him.  Two hundred and fifty white citizens armed themselves with Winchesters and guarded him.  A cannon was placed in front of his home, and the Buchanan Rifles (State Militia) ordered to the scene for his protection.  The colored mob did not show up.  Only two weeks