with knives, the crowd hurled expletives at him, swung the body so that it was dashed against the pole, and, so far from the ghastly sight proving trying to the nerves, the crowd looked on with complaisance, if not with real pleasure.  The Negro died hard.  The neck was not broken, as the body was drawn up without being given a fall, and death came by strangulation.  For fully ten minutes after he was strung up the chest heaved occasionally, and there were convulsive movements of the limbs.  Finally he was pronounced dead, and a few minutes later Detective Richardson climbed on a pile of staves and cut the rope.  The body fell in a ghastly heap, and the crowd laughed at the sound and crowded around the prostrate body, a few kicking the inanimate carcass.

Detective Richardson, who is also a deputy coroner, then proceeded to impanel the following jury of inquest:  J.S.  Moody, A.C.  Waldran, B.J.  Childs, J.N.  House, Nelson Bills, T.L.  Smith, and A. Newhouse.  After viewing the body the inquest was adjourned without any testimony being taken until 9 o’clock this morning.  The jury will meet at the coroner’s office, 51 Beale Street, upstairs, and decide on a verdict.  If no witnesses are forthcoming, the jury will be able to arrive at a verdict just the same, as all members of it saw the lynching.  Then someone raised the cry of “Burn him!” It was quickly taken up and soon resounded from a hundred throats.  Detective Richardson, for a long time, single-handed, stood the crowd off.  He talked and begged the men not to bring disgrace on the city by burning the body, arguing that all the vengeance possible had been wrought.

While this was going on a small crowd was busy starting a fire in the middle of the street.  The material was handy.  Some bundles of staves were taken from the adjoining lumber yard for kindling.  Heavier wood was obtained from the same source, and coal oil from a neighboring grocery.  Then the cries of “Burn him!  Burn him!” were redoubled.

Half a dozen men seized the naked body.  The crowd cheered.  They marched to the fire, and giving the body a swing, it was landed in the middle of the fire.  There was a cry for more wood, as the fire had begun to die owing to the long delay.  Willing hands procured the wood, and it was piled up on the Negro, almost, for a time, obscuring him from view.  The head was in plain view, as also were the limbs, and one arm which stood out high above the body, the elbow crooked, held in that position by a stick of wood.  In a few moments the hands began to swell, then came great blisters over all the exposed parts of the body; then in places the flesh was burned away and the bones began to show through.  It was a horrible sight, one which, perhaps, none there had ever witnessed before.  It proved too much for a large part of the crowd and the majority of the mob left very shortly after the burning began.

But a large number stayed, and were not