his place" or an arrest and fine. But Missouri,
Tennessee and South Carolina chose to make precedents in their cases and
as a result both men, after being charged with their offense and
apprehended, were taken by a mob and lynched. The civil authorities, who
in either case would have been very quick to satisfy the aggrieved white
people had they complained and brought the prisoners to court, by imposing
proper penalty upon them, did not feel it their duty to make any
investigation after the Negroes were killed. They were dead and out of the
way and as no one would be called upon to render an account for their
taking off, the matter was dismissed from the public mind.

LYNCHED FOR A QUARREL

One of the most notable instances of lynching for the year 1893, occurred
about the twentieth of September. It was notable for the fact that the
mayor of the city exerted every available power to protect the victim of
the lynching from the mob. In his splendid endeavor to uphold the law, the
mayor called out the troops, and the result was a deadly fight between the
militia and mob, nine of the mob being killed. The trouble occurred at
Roanoke, Va. It is frequently claimed that lynchings occur only in
sparsely settled districts, and, in fact, it is a favorite plea of
governors and reverend apologists to couple two arrant falsehoods, stating
that lynchings occur only because of assaults upon white women, and that
these assaults occur and the lynchings follow in thinly inhabited
districts where the power of the law is entirely inadequate to meet the
emergency. This Roanoke case is a double refutation, for it not only
disproves the alleged charge that the Negro assaulted a white woman, as
was telegraphed all over the country at the time, but it also shows
conclusively that even in one of the largest cities of the old state of
Virginia, one of the original thirteen colonies, which prides itself of
being the mother of presidents, it was possible for a lynching to occur in
broad daylight under circumstances of revolting savagery.

When the news first came from Roanoke of the contemplated lynching, it was
stated that a big burly Negro had assaulted a white woman, that he had
been apprehended and that the citizens were determined to summarily
dispose of his case. Mayor Trout was a man who believed in maintaining the
majesty of the law, and who at once gave notice that no lynching would be
permitted in Roanoke, and that the Negro, whose na