d
language.

Note 4. There is, as will appear by the quotations, as much fun in the
police reports in New York as in the best of ours: the _style_ of the
Recorder is admirably taken off.

Note 5. Miss Martineau, speaking of a trial for murder in the United
States, says, "I observed that no one seemed to have a doubt of his
guilt." She replied, that there never was a clearer case: but that he
would be acquitted; the examination and trial were a mere form, of which
everyone knew the conclusion beforehand. The people did not choose to
see any more hanging, and till the law was so altered as to allow an
alternative of punishment, no conviction for a capital offence would be
obtainable. I asked on what pretence the young man would be got off, if
the evidence against him was as clear as it was represented. She said
some one would be found to swear an _alibi_.

"A tradesman swore an _alibi_; the young man was acquitted, and the next
morning he was on his way to the West."

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

REMARKS--LYNCH LAW.

Englishmen express their surprise that in a moral community such a
monstrosity as Lynch law should exist; but although the present system,
which has been derived from the original Lynch law, cannot be too
severely condemned, it must, in justice to the Americans, be considered
that the original custom of Lynch law was forced upon them by
circumstances. Why the term of Lynch law has been made use of, I do not
know; but in its origin the practice was no more blameable than were the
laws established by the Pilgrim fathers on their first landing at
Plymouth, or any law enacted amongst a community left to themselves,
their own resources, and their own guidance and government. Lynch law,
as at first constituted, was nothing more than punishment awarded to
offenders by a community who bed been injured, and who had no law to
refer to, and could have no redress if they did not take the law into
their own hands; the _present_ system of Lynch law is, on the contrary,
an illegal exercise of the power of the majority in opposition to and
defiance of the laws of the country, and the measure of justice
administered and awarded by those laws.

It must be remembered that fifty years ago, there were but a few white
men to the westward of the Alleghany Mountains; that the states of
Kentucky and Tennessee were at that time as scanty in population, as
even now are the districts of Ioway and Columbia; that