fire to him. It is said that fifteen thousand people stood by
and saw him burned. This was on a Sunday night, and press reports told how
the people looked on while the Negro burned to death.

Feb. 1, 1893, Henry Smith was burned to death in Paris, Texas. The entire
county joined in that exhibition. The district attorney himself went for
the prisoner and turned him over to the mob. He was placed upon a float
and drawn by four white horses through the principal streets of the city.
Men, women and children stood at their doors and waved their handkerchiefs
and cheered the echoes. They knew that the man was to be burned to death
because the newspaper had declared for three days previous that this would
be so. Excursions were run by all the railroads, and the mayor of the town
gave the children a holiday so that they might see the sight.

Henry Smith was charged with having assaulted and murdered a little white
girl. He was an imbecile, and while he had killed the child, there was no
proof that he had criminally assaulted her. He was tied to a stake on a
platform which had been built ten feet high, so that everybody might see
the sight. The father and brother and uncle of the little white girl that
had been murdered was upon that platform about fifty minutes entertaining
the crowd of ten thousand persons by burning the victim's flesh with
red-hot irons. Their own newspapers told how they burned his eyes out and,
ran the red-hot iron down his throat, cooking his tongue, and how the
crowd cheered wild delight. At last, having declared themselves satisfied,
coal oil was poured over him and he was burned to death, and the mob
fought over the ashes for bones and pieces of his clothes.

July 7, 1893, in Bardwell, Ky., C.J. Miller was burned to ashes. Since his
death this man has been found to be absolutely innocent of the murder of
the two white girls with which he was charged. But the mob would wait for
no justification. They insisted that, as they were not sure he was the
right man, they would compromise the matter by hanging him instead of
burning. Not to be outdone, they took the body down and made a huge
bonfire out of it.

July 22, 1893, at Memphis, Tenn., the body of Lee Walker was dragged
through the street and burned before the court house. Walker had
frightened some girls in a wagon along a country road by asking them to
let him ride in their wagon. They cried out; some men working in a field
near by said it was at at