woman.

BURNED ALIVE FOR ADULTERY

In Texarkana, Arkansas, Edward Coy was accused of assaulting a white
woman. The press dispatches of February 18, 1892, told in detail how he
was tied to a tree, the flesh cut from his body by men and boys, and after
coal oil was poured over him, the woman he had assaulted gladly set fire
to him, and 15,000 persons saw him burn to death. October 1, the _Chicago
Inter Ocean_ contained the following account of that horror from the pen
of the "Bystander" Judge Albion W. Tourgee--as the result of his
investigations:

1. The woman who was paraded as victim of violence was of bad character;
her husband was a drunkard and a gambler.

2. She was publicly reported and generally known to have been criminally
intimate with Coy for more than a year previous.

3. She was compelled by threats, if not by violence, to make the charge
against the victim.

4. When she came to apply the match Coy asked her if she would burn him
after they had "been sweethearting" so long.

5. A large majority of the "superior" white men prominent in the affair
are the reputed fathers of mulatto children.

These are not pleasant facts, but they are illustrative of the vital
phase of the so-called race question, which should properly be
designated an earnest inquiry as to the best methods by which religion,
science, law and political power may be employed to excuse injustice,
barbarity and crime done to a people because of race and color. There
can be no possible belief that these people were inspired by any
consuming zeal to vindicate God's law against miscegenationists of the
most practical sort. The woman was a willing partner in the victim's
guilt, and being of the "superior" race must naturally have been more
guilty.

NOT IDENTIFIED BUT LYNCHED

February 11, 1893, there occurred in Shelby County, Tennessee, the fourth
Negro lynching within fifteen months. The three first were lynched in the
city of Memphis for firing on white men in self-defense. This Negro,
Richard Neal, was lynched a few miles from the city limits, and the
following is taken from the _Memphis (Tenn.) Scimitar_:

As the _Scimitar_ stated on Saturday the Negro, Richard Neal, who raped
Mrs. Jack White near Forest Hill, in this county, was lynched by a mob
of about 200 white citizens of the neighborhood. Sheriff McLendon,
accompanied by Deputies Perkins, App and Harvey and a _Scimitar_