+BURNING HUMAN BEINGS ALIVE +

Not only has life been taken by mobs in the past twenty years, but the ordinary procedure of hanging and shooting have been improved upon during the past ten years.  Fifteen human beings have been burned to death in the different parts of the country by mobs.  Men, women and children have gone to see the sight, and all have approved the barbarous deeds done in the high light of the civilization and Christianity of this country.

In 1891 Ed Coy was burned to death in Texarkana, Ark.  He was charged with assaulting a white woman, and after the mob had securely tied him to a tree, the men and boys amused themselves for some time sticking knives into Coy’s body and slicing off pieces, of flesh.  When they had amused themselves sufficiently, they poured coal oil over him and the women in the case set fire to him.  It is said that fifteen thousand people stood by and saw him burned.  This was on a Sunday night, and press reports told how the people looked on while the Negro burned to death.

Feb. 1, 1893, Henry Smith was burned to death in Paris, Texas.  The entire county joined in that exhibition.  The district attorney himself went for the prisoner and turned him over to the mob.  He was placed upon a float and drawn by four white horses through the principal streets of the city.  Men, women and children stood at their doors and waved their handkerchiefs and cheered the echoes.  They knew that the man was to be burned to death because the newspaper had declared for three days previous that this would be so.  Excursions were run by all the railroads, and the mayor of the town gave the children a holiday so that they might see the sight.

Henry Smith was charged with having assaulted and murdered a little white girl.  He was an imbecile, and while he had killed the child, there was no proof that he had criminally assaulted her.  He was tied to a stake on a platform which had been built ten feet high, so that everybody might see the sight.  The father and brother and uncle of the little white girl that had been murdered was upon that platform about fifty minutes entertaining the crowd of ten thousand persons by burning the victim’s flesh with red-hot irons.  Their own newspapers told how they burned his eyes out and, ran the red-hot iron down his throat, cooking his tongue, and how the crowd cheered wild delight.  At last, having declared themselves satisfied, coal oil was poured over him and he was burned to death, and the mob fought over the ashes for bones and pieces of his clothes.

July 7, 1893, in Bardwell, Ky., C.J.  Miller was burned to ashes.  Since his death this man has been found to be absolutely innocent of the murder of the two white girls with which he was charged.  But the mob would wait for no justification.  They insisted that, as they were not sure he was the right man, they would compromise the matter by hanging him instead of burning.  Not to be outdone, they took the body down and made a huge bonfire out of it.