father's
house by a colored man, and money stolen therefrom by him. Had this been
done in many localities, it would only have been necessary for her to
"identify" the first Negro in that vicinity, to have brought about another
lynching bee.

A VILE SLANDER WITH SCANT RETRACTION

The following published in the _Cleveland (Ohio) Leader_ of Oct. 23, 1894,
only emphasizes our demand that a fair trial shall be given those accused
of crime, and the protection of the law be extended until time for a
defense be granted.

The sensational story sent out last night from Hicksville that a Negro
had outraged a little four-year-old girl proves to be a base canard. The
correspondents who went into the details should have taken the pains to
investigate, and the officials should have known more of the matter
before they gave out such grossly exaggerated information.

The Negro, Charles O'Neil, had been working for a couple of women and,
it seems, had worked all winter without being remunerated. There is a
little girl, and the girl's mother and grandmother evidently started the
story with idea of frightening the Negro out of the country and thus
balancing accounts. The town was considerably wrought up and for a time
things looked serious. The accused had a preliminary hearing today and
not an iota of evidence was produced to indicate that such a crime had
been committed, or that he had even attempted such an outrage. The
village marshal was frightened nearly out of his wits and did little to
quiet the excitement last night.

The affair was an outrage on the Negro, at the expense of innocent
childhood, a brainless fabrication from start to finish.

The original story was sent throughout this country and England, but the
_Cleveland Leader_, so far as known, is the only journal which has
published these facts in refutation of the slander so often published
against the race. Not only is it true that many of the alleged cases of
rape against the Negro, are like the foregoing, but the same crime
committed by white men against Negro women and girls, is never punished by
mob or the law. A leading journal in South Carolina openly said some
months ago that "it is not the same thing for a white man to assault a
colored woman as for a colored man to assault a white woman, because the
colored woman had no finer feelings nor virtue to be outraged!" Yet
colored women have always had far more reason to complain