a bit set back by the sight of a human body being burned to ashes.  Two or three white women, accompanied by their escorts, pushed to the front to obtain an unobstructed view, and looked on with astonishing coolness and nonchalance.  One man and woman brought a little girl, not over twelve years old, apparently their daughter, to view a scene which was calculated to drive sleep from the child’s eyes for many nights, if not to produce a permanent injury to her nervous system.  The comments of the crowd were varied.  Some remarked on the efficacy of this style of cure for rapists, others rejoiced that men’s wives and daughters were now safe from this wretch.  Some laughed as the flesh cracked and blistered, and while a large number pronounced the burning of a dead body as a useless episode, not in all that throng was a word of sympathy heard for the wretch himself.

The rope that was used to hang the Negro, and also that which was used to lead him from the jail, were eagerly sought by relic hunters.  They almost fought for a chance to cut off a piece of rope, and in an incredibly short time both ropes had disappeared and were scattered in the pockets of the crowd in sections of from an inch to six inches long.  Others of the relic hunters remained until the ashes cooled to obtain such ghastly relics as the teeth, nails, and bits of charred skin of the immolated victim of his own lust.  After burning the body the mob tied a rope around the charred trunk and dragged it down Main Street to the courthouse, where it was hanged to a center pole.  The rope broke and the corpse dropped with a thud, but it was again hoisted, the charred legs barely touching the ground.  The teeth were knocked out and the fingernails cut off as souvenirs.  The crowd made so much noise that the police interfered.  Undertaker Walsh was telephoned for, who took charge of the body and carried it to his establishment, where it will be prepared for burial in the potter’s field today.

[Illustration:  Scene of lynching at Clanton, Alabama, August 1891.]

[Illustration:  Facsimile of back of photograph.  W.R.  MARTIN, Traveling Photographer. (Handwritten:  This S.O.B. was hung at Clanton Ala.  Friday Aug 21st/91 for murdering a little boy in cold blood for 35c in cash.  He is a good specimen of your “Black Christian hung by White Heathens” [illegible] of the Committee.)]

A prelude to this exhibition of nineteenth-century barbarism was the following telegram received by the Chicago Inter Ocean, at 2 o’clock, Saturday afternoon—­ten hours before the lynching: 

  MEMPHIS TENN., July 22, To Inter-Ocean, Chicago.

  Lee Walker, colored man, accused of raping white women, in jail here,
  will be taken out and burned by whites tonight.  Can you send Miss Ida
  Wells to write it up?  Answer.  R.M.  Martin, with Public Ledger.

The Public Ledger is one of the oldest evening daily papers in Memphis, and this telegram shows that the intentions of the mob were well known long before they were executed.  The personnel of the mob is given by the Memphis Appeal-Avalanche.  It says, “At first it seemed as if a crowd of roughs were the principals, but as it increased in size, men in all walks of life figured as leaders, although the majority were young men.”